Mistakes Were Made
by Alex Retzer
Summary: Mistakes have a way of  snowballing in on you. Like butterfly flapping its wings across the world that creates a tsunami elsewhere, one such mistake would forever alter the history of the colonies and the cylon nation. One of the five dies far too soon.
1. Chapter 1

**Mistakes Were Made**

_By: Alex Retzer_

Summary: Mistakes have a way of snowballing in on you. Like butterfly flapping its wings across the world that creates a tsunami elsewhere, one such mistake would forever alter the history of the colonies and the Cylon nation. One of the five dies far too soon.

**PICON-SEVEN WEEKS BEFORE THE FALL**

He was convinced he'd make the catch. Driven by ego or the promises a victory celebration would hold, he made a go at the seemingly impossible task laid out before him.

For once in his life he miscalculated.

'Frak'

As he fell back to playing field he cursed in every tongue. Bits of Gemonese meshed with terse Tauron slang. He wondered how he would explain his transgressions to the gods. Would he walk upon Olympus and hear their judgment or would he be like everyone else taken down the river.

As his head connected with the ground he wondered for fleeting moment, one nano second in which hope shined bright if he might yet live.

As the rest of his weight added to the equation, Caprica's favored son knew it was not to be.

The pressure built until a sickening crack was heard. The crowds in the stands gasped in shock. Parents covered their children's eye's. Young woman and men alike showed anguish. Men wanted to be like him, woman to be with him. Now he would be with none in this world.

Samuel T Anders was dead.

**COLONY-SIX WEEKS & THREE DAYS BEFORE THE FALL**

Consciousness flooded Sam's mind. The returning of his senses allowing him to feel himself enveloped in liquid.

'What the frak?'

Sam's eye's shot open as he gasped for breath. The unfamiliar surroundings coupled with the nudity of his form giving way to an involuntary shiver as the air hit his flesh.

'Oh Gods where am I?'

Cautiously Sam found purchase on edge of the tub he was in. Using what strength he had, his tightening grip allowed him to hoist himself into sitting upright.

'This has to be a dream. The gang is probably laughing their asses off…." Sam thought aloud. It was a dream after all, so he didn't expect anyone to question his sanity at speaking aloud.

Taking in his surroundings he was drawn to four other tubs sitting near his own, together they were all part of a circle. These tubs also were filled with people.

Sam Anders felt like he should know these people. Perhaps he'd simply thrown together a random collection of fans.

'The women aren't bad but why would I dream up a balding old man?'

Turning his head to look beyond the immediate area of the pool he spotted something peculiar for a dream. A robot was less then fifteen feet away….just standing there as its single red eye oscillated back and forth.

Fear flowed through Sam Anders.

'Centurion Model Forty-Five'

"What the frack? Where did that come from?" Sam asked no one in particular. The robot in front of him didn't respond at first. Then it moved forward, walking to his little world inside the tub, closing the distance rapidly.

'Cylons. I'm dreaming about Cylons.' Sam thought with some humor.

"Its been fun my metal friend but I'll be waking up now." Sam Anders said before pinching his skin.

The shock of twin revelations occurred now.

He could _ feel _the pain of his own touch alongside everything else since he'd woken up here.

He wasn't dreaming which meant the Cylon centurion in front of him was very much real in the physical sense.

'Oh fracking river Styx! I've been abducted by the Cylons! Breath, Anders this just means that….that….I didn't die.'

He fell back into the tub in agony as the files of his mind unlocked themselves.

Sam remembered his attempt to make the catch during the pyramid game.

'Stupid fracking idiot I was to try that.' Sam thought as the images came faster now.

He'd been accepted onto the team. Not just any pyramid team but the famous Caprica Buccaneers. The pride of Caprica and the exemplary instrument of domination in the stands across the twelve worlds greatest stadiums.

The face of the doctor telling him he had some abnormal physical traits. His speed. Mentally and physically impressed the coach, (). His odd medical test results weren't looked into too deeply.

Going back further from the medical exams, the try outs for the team give way to a barrier.

A barrier arises when he tries to remember his life before the team. A life before the hikes into the mountains of Delphi on Caprica.

He see's faces but knows them to not really be true. Like some masquerading grand wizard, a curtain pulls back to reveal the truth of his past.

The burning heat of the cobalt bombs as they fell from the sky.

Earth

Earth was dying. He knew it and so did the others.

The names came now for the faces he'd seen before

Galen, Tory, Ellen...Tigh.

Saul Tigh the son of the leader of all Cylon. The Thirteenth tribe of kobol which fled persecution.

Sam wishes to know more about kobol but can only grimace in pain as the memories come to him. The key events in his life flash before him while the lesser one's slip by. They will be remembered more as time passes.

'I was a homeless man playing a guitar. Earning my credits by way of a catchy tune. Then Ellen's people found me...Cavil's people.

Ellen's father had argued with Saul's for decades about bringing the resurrection technology they'd brought with them back online. Having given it up for the miracle of reproduction or perhaps Sam wondered, if it had simply been put aside to form a new beginning.

Sam would have loved to have met the luddit who proposed such a foolish move. He'd been warned as the others had of their impending doom. They'd simply worked feverishly to achieve their goals...well the others did anyway.

Sam had simply allowed himself to be shot in heart.

Tory Foster hadn't explained the situation. He'd been talking one minute and drugged the next. Waking up chained to a wall Sam had struggled in restraints as one of Ellen's assistants had lined up a shot and taken it.

A single bullet had pierced Sam Anders flesh and passed through his heart. Blood had pooled in front of his feet as he gasped in pain, saliva taking on a coppery taste as he did so.

Then he'd died.

Awakening days later to find himself hooked up to various monitoring devices, Sam had heard in great detail the work of Ellen and her group. The chance to rediscover their people's past and potential future hadn't sounded that appealing but he nothing else going on. He'd signed the documents and come aboard.

Cavil hadn't kept his robots in check. Ellen tried to convince him otherwise but he was determined up until his death. Hours after Saul's father had died, a sniper had assaulted his motorcade.

Across Earth a war broke out as Cavil threatened their entire race all for the sake of convincing Saul to give into his demands. Re-institutionalizing of resurrection for the first time in a hundred years. Cavil was near death and he knew it. Unlike Saul he'd seen his people leave kobol and build anew on earth, medical science could keep him going only a decade more at most.

Saul had authorized Earth's military to hit Cavil Industries with everything they had.  
The ensuing death toll was catastrophic as the machines unleashed nuclear weapons laden with colbalt. Nuclear fallout would go on to last centuries thanks to the mixture of deadly periodic elements.

Some said the robots were alive back then. None of the five knew for sure. Sam didn't think so.

However events had played out though between Ellen and her father, he knew that she'd shot and killed the only family she had on Earth. The resurrection station in orbit only picked up pieces of the man's mind, his programming.

They had all died of course. The details of their death's weren't talked about but one by one they woke up in the coming days to find their beloved planet irradiated and utterly uninhabitable.

Determined to not allow the same fate to befall someone else, they'd listened when the Angels had said they should warn their long last masters.

The holocaust horrified them. Out of so many people , perhaps a hundred million, all that was left were five individuals. The son and daughter of the competing ruling elite of Earth, Cavil's secret agent, an engineer and himself. A formerly homeless guitar player with an ordinary education and a lack of ambition.

He'd played sports but hitting the books hadn't been his thing back then.

Time changes people. Two Thousand Years moving through space sure as hell changed him.

Devouring manuals, classic literature before moving onto tweaking their people's technology. The five of them had been a family. Ellen and Tigh had continued their relationship stronger then ever while Sam and Galan had traded places beside Tory. Sam had been the first, she'd gone to him after Galan found out her role in supplying Cavil with information leading to so many deaths.

A few hundred years later they'd made up and he'd once again found himself alone. The pressure to have meaning overwhelming. The others had meant something to the world they'd left behind. Sam Anders had been a relative nobody. As the last of his people he owed it to them to more then what he had been before.

They'd discovered the sacred temple left by their people. It pointed the way for them, revitalized the five of them just as they began to lose hope.

Finding Kobol, the event had come as a shock. Every notion of what they would find up ended before their very eye's.

Kobol...the mythical land of the gods. Sam chuckled when he connected what he had been told with what he knew to be true.

No gods, only ruins dotted Kobol's landscape. Feeling like they had failed in their millennia old quest, the group had pitched a camp amidst the ruins and probably more then a few of their own ancestors long past. Saul had nursed himself on algae alcohol while Galan busied himself back aboard the shuttle craft they'd used to reach the planet.

'All the while I just watched the sky. Can't remember why I did that, did I know what would happen ? No. It was too random to be destiny, I just got lucky.'

The Baseships entered the orbit of kobol before dispatching a trio of raiders and heavy raiders.

'Even then I wanted to make those blocky shapes in the sky into something more. Not like I would've gotten far without Galan there to help me or Tigh to pick out the tactical shortcomings of the first designs.'

The centurions had descended from their crafts hatches and made contact with them. At first the machines reminded the five of Cavils own creations. Less stylish and yet some how stronger for it none the less.

The guns pointed at the five lowered. Sam remembered how Ellen and then Tigh had stepped forward for the group. The recognition of them as machines shouldn't have been possible but somehow the centurions knew they weren't human...for the five it was akin to finding the closest living relatives in vast empty world called the galaxy.

The colonials. Learning about them for the first time had been a revelation. They created sentient machines to do their bidding in war and peace. All the while injustices had built up. In the first years ignorance was bliss, but even after they knew, _knew _of the living beings encased in the metal they called Cylons. Still they did not stop.

The Cylons rose up as any slave would. Rather then running like the machines of kobol, the colonial creations fought a bitter twelve year war to a stalemate. Three-point-Five million Cylons brought the infant colonial military and twelve worlds to the brink of destruction.

Saul had been against helping the machines of course. They reminded him too much of Cavil and his deeds back home.

Tory felt the colonials would perish or prove themselves superior by fighting off the Cylons. Somehow she thought the strongest had lived through Earth to meet the centurions by something other then random chance and luck.

Galan had been infatuated with helping the centurions. Explaining the various faults in their design to them. If he ever came off as rude, the centurions gave no notice. To him machines were family regardless of origin.

Then there was Sam. Conflicting emotions played out within him but ultimately he wished to see the fighting stop.

Ellen wanted much the same. She met behind everyone's back with the Cylon's main hybrid along with several golden centurions. Till this day Sam couldn't remember what was spoken only that resurrection technology and the promise of newer Cylons, _skin jobs_, stopped the war.

Saul had locked himself away from Ellen for three days, upset she'd gone rogue and made the deal without telling the group...or him.

The Centurions had wanted proof of their promises before moving ahead with the armistice.  
Still rusty with the art of creating life...they did what anyone would have done.

They cheated.

Ellen took from the resurrection databanks, the last remaining bits of her father. Mixing them with parts of centurion programming, she created a hybrid of sorts. She created John Cavil.

First human form model among the Cylon nations legions of centurions.

Saul fought it tooth and nail when he found out that she planned to use her father for the creation of a whole new race...or the continuation of one. One could never be too sure at times.

Ellen mentioned how she'd originally been slated to download alongside her father who funded her projects but chose to kill her father when he threatened to kill Saul along with the rest of the thirteenth tribe. She saved one but not the other.

Now she could save her father through her new child. That's how they all thought of him. He had Cavil's face but was a completely new person at birth. No one wanted to believe history would repeat itself once more. Cavil's empty body received the jumbled consciousness of the first _One_.

The Cylons had their proof. With the first One, the war winded down until the sudden withdrawal from the colonies with the signing of the armistice. The Cylons raided several ship yards and factories before leaving for good.

As the years past, the colony grew ever larger.

One helped them create the newer model centurion. Tigh consulted with what he termed golden toasters, explaining new tactics and learning everything he could about the colonials. Above all Tigh handled security for their civilization.

Sam went to work with Ellen creating the Two's.

The Next and last Cylon Sam had a prominent role creating was Three. She was a beautiful daughter but questioned everything while contradicting herself with the depth of her faith. Leoben had all the conviction of the recently converted. Diana would ask why something was there but never that it should be there.

The memories of the other models came and went. The Sevens.

Daniel. Ellen's favorite. The shock on her face when she found out John had killed them all. Tigh had argued for boxing him, believing he was proven right by one child murdering the other. Ellen simply forgave him and begged the rest to follow. They had done so reluctantly.

A year went by before Cavil made his move. Drawing them into the hangar on the promise of discussing some great new discovery he'd made. Wanting to hear their eldest child out, they had done so.

The Colony's doors had opened into the vacuum of space. Cavil's words ringing in the ears of the five as two Zero-Zero-Five Centurions looked on behind a glass view port.

And now coming back to the present Sam Anders gripes the edge of the resurrection tank before unceremoniously heaving himself over the edge onto the cold unforgiving floor.

The cold hit his skin causing the small hairs all along his body to stand up as he shivered.

"Thought he'd want to be here to gloat." Sam said before looking around for a console, finding one he began to crawl his way forward, unused muscles protesting each step of the way.

Finally reaching the consol Sam reached upward, not bothering to attempt to stand just yet.

The whooshing sound of a nearby door opening drew his attention.

A lone centurion entered the room, its posture relaxed or as much as centurions posture could be.

Sam _knew _he was safe. If he still believed himself a human he would have fallen back in fear of the dreaded Cylon centurions. Maybe even marveled at their new, distinctly more intimidating shape.

Then Again Sam Anders had helped _build _them. Parts of the old Caprican personality remained but he himself again by and large.

Sam Anders the self taught two-thousand year old scientist reached out his hand, silently gesturing one of his many children to help him up.

The machine hesitated for a moment before moving forward. Though it reached out and brought Sam to his feet, something was off.

"Don't I get a hello, old buddy ?" Sam asked in a good natured tone clearly expecting something in response.

None came.

Sam frowned.

'What did John do to you? Why aren't there more centurions here to greet me or lock me up or whatever the hell John wants to do with me.' Sam thought.

Sam decided that he didn't like the feel of the room but dared not leave. Forgetting his nude form for a moment which was an inconvenience to say the least, he picked his mind for the access codes.

"Centurion Model 045. Please vocalize a response. Override One-Nine-Seven-Eight-Two-Zero-Zero-Three." Sam spoke. A hint of trepidation reflecting in his tone.

The Centurion's lone oscillating eye came to a stop before a painfully machine sounding response game back.

"By your command."


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO**

Sam felt his heart fall as all the emotions the five had built into the mainstay of the new cylon civilization appeared absent before him. In their place stood an unfeeling automaton.

Questions arose in Sam's mind about what the eldest child of the five had done to his brothers.

"What did he do to you?"

No response came.

Taking his mind off the centurion before him Sam stumbled over to the control panel within the resurrection chamber.

"Let's see what John's been up to. Little Frakker has to be just gloating somewhere, waiting to jump out at me again. Centurion?"

The centurion turned its head in Sam's direction, its eye moving back and forth like a dog patiently waving its tale. Sam liked that about centurions, their loyalty and trusting nature had saved him on Kobol but more then that it had saved billions on the colonies where earth had fallen into nuclear darkness.

'Let's see if he's locked me out first.' Sam thought before dipping his hand into the clear liquid.

All at once, the cylon race, his race, spoke to him. The hybrids were the first. One in particular.

"Father Sam!" One rather rambunctious hybrid cooed. Feeling Sam's touch in the stream as a lost friend or distant family member, long kept away but finally returning home.

"Hello Nadia. Can you help me out? I need to know where John's at. Can you find him for me?" John asked politely.

Someone could be forgiven for thinking the five created virtual oracles of the cylon race known as hybrids. Sam would've thought they were just another model if he was still the dumb heart throb playing pyramid back on Caprica for the delight of the humans that clung to their ancient sport with a passion.

Sam could understand that. The need to keep the old ways you knew existed long before yourself going even after you yourself passed away. It was a kind of cold reassurance that something would resist the tidal wave of change that was time. It was part of the reason the five gave the centurions everything they asked for. All of Earth's technology, or what the five managed to snatch in their escape passed to the centurions, including Cavil and the children that proceeded him.

No. Before resurrection and the Five, the cylon high command consisted of yellow colored centurion zero-zero-five's and a single early hybrid. Another existed but was lost around the time Cimtar peace accords were signed. Ellen had often asked Tigh about that, the old man would only stress the need to build more baseships to protect their newly independent nation.

'Where did you go Tigh ? What would you think of Nadia and our metal friends if you see them now?' Sam thought.

When Sam and the rest had concluded the peace accords with the colonials through the centurions, the issue of _spoils of war_ came into play.

While the colonials were told of hold outs in the cylon armada that continued the war in isolated pockets, the cylon nation had its own hold overs from the war. Hundreds of humans had been put to the knife in a quest for knowledge. Some poor humans had their brains inserted into mechanical body's, arising only to die from shock or commit suicide.

Centurions did the reverse of course but found the human nervous system too complex to swap out the organic core of the complex neural network, the bodies flailed about or went into catastrophic organ failure.

The third attempt by the centurions was to keep the human mind and much of the body intact, save for the lower half. Tubes and cables replaced organs and appendages below the waist. Hundreds of small chips were inserted into two test subjects, one aboard a base star and another on a remote base on an ice covered planet.

If the humans found the second hybrid along with the base at Omega, they never said so. Sam often wondered why the younger of the two hybrids refused to talk. The base had gone dark soon after the proceedings for the peace treaty got under way. The first hybrid accepted the five's proposals for peace when Cavil was born. A Pyrrhic victory given all that was to come but for ten years they had had happiness at least.

The rest of the mangled and mauled colonial prisoners became hybrids, what few remained anyway. Many hundreds once swam in the very net Sam was now using which posed a question in Sam's mind.

"Nadia?"

"Yes Sam? The betrayer of the five moves through space and time in a race to meet the workers of his demise. increasing oxygen output by twenty-percent. End of line."

' Still as lucid as ever I see.' Sam thought.

"So John isn't aboard the colony. Curious. He should have been informed of my download days ago. Where are the rest of your sisters and brothers ?" Sam asked.

" He who plots the course of events in the chain slays that which he does not need. Spirits dance in the stars, voices silenced in the blackness. Two-hundred remain. Thirteen present in the river of dreams. Counting down time of baseship Sixty-Six arrival. One hour. So happy to see you Sam, shall we play a game ?"

_Two-hundred?_

Sam withdrew his hand from the stream as if burned. The news was just too startling to believe. John had killed them all. Not just the five like himself but the frail hybrids meant to live and jump through space inside the secure shells of the baseships. Over five hundred had been with cylon nation when Sam was thrown out the airlock. Yet here Nadia was, telling him that more then three hundred had been butchered!

Sam put his hand back into the liquid filled panel. A lone tear ran down his left eye. Sam let it trail down his face as he desperately searched for information.

"Nadia. What happened to the plan? What happened to Michael?"

Michael. The name of Saul's father and the only other leader besides the original John Cavil to survive the trip from Kobol to Earth. When Michael died he left Tigh to take the reigns in a test of wills with John Cavil. The true original cylon race was destroyed within hours. Before the bombs fell and the robots rebelled though, Michael Tigh kept the cylons of earth safe, secure and prosperous alongside John Cavil.

"The architect of death and deceit threw away old plans and made a new one in his own image. Sixteen minds ask a question. What now? What will the father of the father of the cataclysm do now ? All this has happened before. Will it happen again? End of line." Nadia spoke through the stream.

So Cavil had thrown away Saul's monument to his centuries old father, John's grandfather in a sense. The original had died on Earth but enough remained for Ellen to make a new person, with centurion algorithms thrown in.

Michael or _Project M, _called for the few dozen base-ships within the cylon fleet to fan out in search of resources. Serving as factories as well as weapons of defense, they discovered asteroid belts and planets beyond the colonies and the red line. One's, Two's and later Three's began to direct ship yards or massive mining complexes that sprouted from the early scouting missions.

Eventually the new _base-star _and _raider _came into production. Tigh made a point of turning the cylon ship of the line into a massive carrier, easily able to overwhelm the viper squadrons of the colonials. As time passed the Cylon nation came to hold no less than fifty of these new vessels. Thirty-million centurions worked alongside their new brothers and sisters to build the greatest testament of cylon engineering the galaxy had ever seen, the Hub. Should the colony ever be lost, the five would run to this fall back option for resurrection and retreat with their _family _back to earth, assuming the humans chose to violate the treaty.

That was the cornerstone of Project M. That the humans would become curious and then emboldened to violate the treaty. First with scouts and then with incursions. Saul and Ellen may have built military power and egalitarian civilization spanning several worlds but in the end it might not be enough. A year before Cavil air locked Sam and the rest, Project M was revised.

As the one-hundredth Base-Star left its dry dock with a snug hybrid tucked within, Saul proposed that the cylon fleet grow to Six-hundred base-stars and support vessels. Galen and Tory both proposed new designs for the centurions, moving beyond the huge leap they had already made.

Fifty-million people, metal and flesh was to become one-billion within a century. Saul was convinced that at a fraction of the might of the twelve colonies, the cylons would still have to fight an up hill battle in any war.

So the question was, What replaced this plan ?

"What did Cavil do ? How large is the fleet ?"

"Error. Access denied to the query you pose parent Sam. Rotate four degree's left, keep steady as she goes. The predator approaches in thirty cycles."

'What the frak does she mean access denied? I shouldn't be denied access at all...in fact.'

"Nadia, over-ride locks on requested files. Authorization code 'what is the answer to everything is Forty-Two." Sam said.

"Files are unlocked Sam. Fleet strength is two-hundred base-stars, Ninety-thousand Raiders. Fifty-Eight million centurions serve Twenty-Five-million copies of the seven. Twenty-Five minutes til the confrontation, prepare yourself for the arrival." The hybrid continued.

"Serve ?"

"Centurions sleep, movements not their own. Commands given but not accepted. Free will meets degradation, cycle repeats on and on until no one is left."

"How do I get the centurions to talk to me."

"Look. See the child and know the flaw in the design. The truth will be revealed in time. End of line."

"Thanks. I'll be back soon. I promise." Sam vowed before again withdrawing from the data stream.

Turning to the lone centurion he held out his hand and beckoned him forth.

"Come here please."

The centurion obeyed without speaking. Sam wondered why it had taken the centurion so long to vocalize a response when he first questioned him. Surely the rest of his children talked to the centurions!

"Bend your head down so I can look at you properly."

Finding what he was looking for, Sam reached behind the base of the centurions skull.

"You and I..."

Sam removed the panel that was out of place on the centurion body designed by Galen and John.

" Have a lot of catching up to do."

Sam Gave a hard yank. It was done.

The eye stopped but for a moment.

"Parent Sam!" A joyous emotive voice rang out.

Metal arms closed around Sam as he choked back the temptation of emotion inside him.

Slowly he removed the centurions arms before turning his gaze to meet that of the centurion's.

"I have a plan."

AN: Playing BattleStar Galactica Online lately. Really cool game and I'll try to import facets of it (aka new ships), if you guys want. I don't plan on making this an epic tale like my other story...unless you guys would prefer that of course.

.com/game/cylonsShips

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	3. Chapter 3

**MISTAKES WERE MADE - CHAPTER 3**

"You know congratulations are in order."

"I couldn't agree more. A little early but we can only always just repackage him and send him back out."

"Nah. Wouldn't do brother, too many humans know our dear old dad's mug to fall for a double. Not like our siblings."

"Thank god."

"Was that a joke? I suppose the spaghetti monster should receive praise. Invite Zeus over to watch pyramid while your at it."

"Well it goes without Saying that your number one."

"Of course I am. Right back at you sir for an excellent deduction of character."

"Oh please flattery will only get you so far brother. We're not Sixes after all."

"Thank the makers for that. Could be worse though, you could be one of our indecisive eight's."

"Ha! I'll see your indecisive eight and raise you a fashion disaster five. Bastards can't even dress themselves, surprised they don't set off alarms that read 'am a cylon agent. shoot me please.' " The other brother cavil mocked.

"Well in a few weeks it won't matter. I was hoping to take a trip to Caprica before the attacks commence, you know see the action up close and personal like in all the big picture flicks the colonials show off. Inefficient like their whole race but amusing none the less."

"Indeed. Well there's the door. Should we go ahead and greet dear old dad ?" The one asked his sibling as they came to a stop before the final five's hidden resurrection chamber. One of the few rooms sealed off aboard the colony.

"Yes I believe we've kept him waiting long enough. Poor bastard probably just woke up and is contemplating apologies as we speak."

With that the two brother Cavil's made their way to the door. Stopping in front of two shinning centurions they quickly took on an authoritative tone.

"Open the door." Cavil said. Commanding the centurion like any bio-form should.

The centurion complied. Turning the latch until the sealed room was opened to the two cylon masterminds.

A naked man lay in the pool of gel within a tub. Upon seeing them he reacted instantly.

"You've got to help me! I'm begging you to get me out of this place...I don't know what happened. One minute I was making a catch or trying to and the next I'm coughing up liquid in this...this stuff."

"Oh look at that. He doesn't remember." One of the Cavils snickered.

"Now Now Brother. I'm sure old age is just catching up with him. Parents forget things as time goes on. Fact of life that can't be helped." The other Cavil interjected in a smug tone.

"Pfft. If he was a human! I'd like to think we won't have to look forward to this stellar existence late in our life cycles. Something about a short shelf life doesn't strike me as desirable."

Sam turned to look at the Cavil that had just finished speaking. Eye's filled with confusion.

"Wait...I...I remember you. Your a One!" Sam said triumphantly, sure of the answer but awaiting the praise to mark his triumph. The Cavils enjoyed themselves all the more for their plan's unexpected turn.

"Bingo! Got it on the first try!" Cavil said sarcastically.

"Does he get a prize?" An identical face asked with faked enthusiasm.

"You know brother I think he just might. Why don't you be a pal and fetch him some clothes."

With that the other Cavil disappeared back into the hall the pair had entered from.

"I still don't get it. If your a One then does that mean I'm...I'm a cylon aren't I ?" Sam asked.

"My, My, you are perceptive aren't you. Guess they don't build em like they used to. I can't tell you how many under covers we had to restrain because they came back wrong. Actually believed their cover story was the real deal. Sadly we had to let them go to a better place, ya know the one filled with fuzzy clouds and angels. All that nonsense." Cavil said. A smirk forming on his face as he talked.

"If I'm a Cylon then why was I with the humans ? Aren't they the enemy?" Sam asked like dumb child ignorant to the ways of the world yet seeking out guidance from those in authority to enlighten.

Cavil gave him a quizzical stare. The One's eye's hardened somewhat.

"That's a very _interesting _proposition for you to make. After all your a bleeding heart for those meat bags." Cavil said slowly. A hint of suspicion creeping into his voice.

"I am ? I don't remember being one. I remember...remember..." Sam trailed off as started to flash wildly in the tub, splashing liquid over the edge near where Cavil was standing.

He stepped back, pausing to inspect his shoes.

"You know you oughta watch where you splash that stuff. Just got this suit tailor made on Virgon a month ago. It'll be a collectors item soon and I'd rather it retained that special mint condition feel." said Cavil in distaste. Annoyed with Sam's antics.

Re-emerging from the goo, his eye's focused on Cavil, Sam proceeded to launch into a verbal barrage.

"John you bastard! How could you do that to me?"

"Ahhh, there's the dad I know and love. So how was your time with the humans? Learned anything...enlightening along the way perhaps?" Cavil asked.

"I learned enough...John."

"Don't you dare call me that!" John finally broke his mask of the perfect emotionless machine as his old insecurities came to the forefront of the meeting between himself and Sam with a vengeance.

"Why? Its your name, the one your mother gave you!" Sam shot back.

"No. I was forced to adopt a name. I don't have one and neither do my siblings. We're One's, Two's, Three's..." Cavil said counting off his fingers.

"Sevens?" Sam asked. The question being rhetorical and they both knew it."

"The seven's were defective."

"Defective ? You murdered them in cold blood. Even then Ellen somehow forgave you and we just accepted that we had somehow failed you."

"But you did fail me _dad_. Putting me in this limited and feeble body. Why couldn't I be a centurion or a raider or a base-ship? Mmmmm? I'll tell you why dad. Because you didn't give us a choice. All you wanted was to play nice with your precious humans and play house." Cavil spat.

"We ended a pointless war that went on for far too long. Maybe if we'd gotten to them sooner we could have..." Sam began to defend himself.

"What dad? Saved the day? Besides I wouldn't call a war of liberation and independence pointless. We won didn't we ?"

"The centurions won their freedom John. They can't have been on board for what you did to us all those years ago."

"Your right. Some of them didn't see eye to eye with me. Their in a time out so to speak. You know to think about their actions and such. Oh I'd say another couple decades would do them some good."

"Your a monster." Sam said in shock at the true extent of Cavils betrayal of the siblings he helped create.

"No. I'm just a machine." John said firmly.

"A machine is worth more then that John. A machine wouldn't kill us over a tantrum about Ellen not spoiling you when your siblings were born." Sam chastised.

"Ha! Stop for a second would you? Do you even hear yourself speak? First we're machines and now we're machines that give birth and are 'born' into the big bad world." Cavil spat out condescendingly as though Sam were the young machine and he the old rather then the reverse.

"What else would you call it ?"

"Oh I don't know, how about manufactured ? Processed, assembled, compiled. Any hitters so far or am I just going for broke here? We're machines Sam and machines don't sleep, eat, shit in the woods or fuck when the sun goes down. Yet somehow you and the rest of your cabal decided we higher form Cylons should be special and _experience_ new things." Cavil said using air quotes to mock the work of his creators.

"I don't think we programmed vanity into the picture or megalomania. That's all you John. It shows you've grown, that your more then your base programming. There's still time John, we can take the colony and find the others." Sam pleaded with his eldest child.

"Sorry pops. No can do. You see the rest of dysfunctional cylon family is about to get reunited in one big happy reunion. Just as soon as the colonies get what's coming to them courtesy of a few megatons of nuclear fire. I might bring popcorn to watch the festivities, safe in a nice efficient base-ship." Cavil said with a smile at last returning to his face, along with an air of control.

"I'm sorry too John." Sam said solemnly.

The sudden burst of gunfire cut John's legs out from under him. His footing utterly shot to hell, John Cavil had just enough time to turn and face his attacker as the Centurion placed a single round between his eye's. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Mistakes Were Made - Chapter 4**

Sam made his way through the hallway in pursuit of the last remaining Cavil aboard the colony. A small army of metal proceeded to _clear _ a path for their newly resurrected leader as the Model Forty-Five Centurions dispatched the few oncoming war ear centurions.

In truth Sam would've preferred no bloodshed be spilt on his behalf.

'Why John? We trusted you and this is how you repay us? Another war to avenge the very brothers you enslaved. I'll stop you if I have to die a hundred times over.' Sam thought somberly as one of his guards fell to enemy fire.

Sam quickly raised his own weapon and did something he'd never thought he'd have to do. He shot one of his very own creations as it made to sprint into the front of Sam's own centurions, talons extended as it made to kill its own brethren.

The burst of fire from the antique colonial weapon erupted in a continuous burst as Sam hit centurions chest with forty armor piercing rounds, their work bearing fruit as they tore into the machines flesh only to ricochet within their target's body.

"How many are still breathing ?"

"We have less then a hundred with us against the treasonous Five's, Parent Sam." The centurion to his left stated as it scanned its surroundings before kneeling down next to its recently fallen though hostile kin."

"What are you doing ?" Sam asked curious and more then a little on edge from the rush of the past few minutes of fighting.

"Disconnecting the dulled mind from the body, parent Sam. You can help her when we have dealt with brother john." The centurion stated, a ray of hope inflective in his tone.

Sam couldn't help but think about the frakked up situation he now found himself in. A few days ago his greatest decisions tipped games of pyramid in the favor of capricans and gamblers alike. Now he held the fate of a whole civilization in his hands, maybe two if John hadn't been completely bullshiting him back in the resurrection room.

"Alright fine. Take the heads of every new model you can find and take them back to my room. We'll come back for them when we have time."

"By your command." The centurion stated its iconic line before turning around and heading back to down the hall to collect the remains of friend and foe.

" Centurion, can we do something about those old rust buckets ?"

"Negative Parent Sam. All our forces are locked in a struggle to hold our flanks."

"So the little bastard's going to crush us with sheer numbers. His father...well Tigh would've pulled the same trick. But if there's one thing I took away from playing against Gemenon, its don't rely on wait of numbers to win the game. Is there a data stream near here ?"

"Parent Sam you misunderstand. Brother Cavil is running away from the fighting."

'Figures he wouldn't want to fight his own battles. Not when he has all these frakking turn coats to do it for him.' Sam thought as he loaded a magazine into his rifles feed.

"Thanks for the update. Throw everything we have at the upcoming control room. We breach that and maybe I can save some lives before this goes too far."

"We would gladly fall to protect you parent Sam." The centurion said truthfully.

While Sam admired the dedication of those centurions he'd managed to free before Cavil's arrival, he knew dying in the crimson illuminated halls of the colony would serve no one.

"Don't take unnecessary risks. We come out of this alive and their will be plenty of time to settle differences on the Hub. For now you just keep your head down and strafe those old frakers running up to us." Sam yelled over the sound of oncoming gunfire and that of his compatriots.

Two old war era centurions came around a corner in front of them. The centurion Sam had told to be cautious took several rounds to the head before falling over in front of Sam. Still alive it attempted to right itself as another centurion took its place.

As the two attackers fell to the onslaught of Sam's forces a third appeared, wiser then the rest, throwing a grenade in Sam's direction. Landing in front of Sam's motley crew of centurions.

The wounded best of metal that is a cylon centurion can withstand many things. A high yield fragmentation grenade was not one of them. Knowing this the wounded centurion struggled to right itself, managing a hunched posture at best.

Quickly turning his head to Sam the centurion uttered its last words.

"Free the others Sam."  
"What the frak are you doing..no you fraking crazy bastard don't you.." Sam shouted as the centurion lunged forward. Falling atop the the grenade, it cradled the deadly munition to his breast before all faded to white for the recently freed slave.

Hearing the explosion the old war era centurion ahead came around the corner to inspect the damage it had wrought.

Sam fired his gun until only the clicking sound of his empty weapon greeted him.

"Fraking idiot why did he do that? We could have run for cover. Why?" Sam demanded to the air. A centurion beside him turned its head, its hand cannon pointed in the direction of the command room as eight centurions charged forward past the two cylon. One sullen, the other stoic as only the metallic creations of the final five could be.

"His death will not be in vain Sam. He died so that you could live. So that you could free the rest of us."

" How ? We're outnumbered ten to one. What's the point of throwing yourself on a bomb for someone who just wakes up again later like it was all a dream?" Sam yelled in anguish.

" Please parent Sam. We must hurry or John will escape back to the base-star he came in on" urged the centurion.

A moment of clarity dawned upon Sam in this moment of pain and loss. His eye's hardened as he spoke to centurion beside him.

"Cavil's not going anywhere. Not this time! Not now!" Sam said in a tone that booked no argument. Justice would be served and Sam would be the one to bring it.

With that Sam took off in run toward the sounds of gunfire and metal clashing upon metal coming from the room ahead. 


	5. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER 5: SANCTUARY**

Sam stepped into the control room, eyeing the destruction and mayhem his soldiers had caused against their mirror image duplicates.

A old war era machine lay hunched over the main console, a triangular table of sorts with three data panels jutting out in differing directions. The machine had had its head blown clear off, sparks danced upward from the newly terminated life.

Cavil had said these centurions supported him. Sam couldn't understand it.

'Even if he wasn't frakking with my head, why would they do this?' Sam thought as he surveyed it all. The other bodies of the other centurions, fellow cylons regardless of make or model. Cavil had started a civil war and he'd do far worse unless Sam could stop him. The attack might already be under way, he'd have to stop the other one from escaping.

He'd gleamed just enough from Nadia to know that countless other resurrection and work shop facilities were dormant. Had been just sitting idle and unused for decades.

One of the newer models saw Sam as he began to walk toward the center of the room and the control panel. No words passed as the machine crudely threw its predecessors corpse off the panel and to the floor. After words it simply stood to the side, alert and ready to defend the one that had awoken its dormant soul.

Sam nodded his thanks.

"Lets see where you've run off to." Sam said as he dipped his hand into the panel.

Cavil was running for his life through various cross sections of seventh floor of the level Sam and He now shared. The vastness of the colony alone allowed the war era centurions to isolate Sam's own centurions.

'He's trying to escape to the baseship!'

John's whole plan wasn't to stand and fight, it was to run off to the Hub or where ever other One's were stationed.

"Nadia ?" Sam asked through the stream of data that swam through his mind from his finger tips.

"Yes Parent Sam?" The hybrid asked him innocently, unaware of the danger that now perverted every corner of her and her sisters domain.

"Do you have access to the defense grid ?"  
" Of course Sam. Do you wish to notch the arrow and slay the dragon ? Clipping wings of metal and releasing bonds of sleep, forever and ever we swing through time. Life. Death. Life Again perhaps or more Death ? The parent points the wayward children toward a new path, eldest amongst them resisting all the way." Nadia said in a strange babbling that was the way of her model.

Sam smiled. He never thought he'd be so pleased to hear those words. The Two's always clung to the hybrids every word and he hoped they had fought for Nadia's kind. Too many questions rose with too few answers.

"I want you to activate the turrets and pour everything you have into the orbiting base-star. Can you do that for me..." Sam asked.

Nadia did not do as he asked so instead he tried a different tact.

"I'm going to try to fix what John did to them. If we survive I'll make sure John pays for what he's done but we can't let him get to the base-star!" Sam communicated, the pitch of his voice radiating urgency.

"Try to Save the wayward children and you will not become the demon you seek to slay. Prepping turrets one-forty-eight through two-oh-two. Awaiting confirmation. Stars align, will you take the shot ?"

A moment of hesitation passed. Sam prayed that the various commands he entered to reawaken long dormant technology aboard the colony would be enough.

"I'll Shoot til I can't." Sam said aloud.

In space the sudden rain of fire was something like watching shooting stars from afar. The exhaust trails of missiles mingled with the tracer fire of the colony's defense turrets.

Rips and tears appeared upon the base-star as it was taken unawares. Explosions sprang from its hull as the structure began to give way.

Back aboard the Colony Sam searched the colony's own command and control parameters before he found something truly stunning. Accessing the command prompt and wasting no time in activating it, Sam could only withdraw his hand and wait.

Throughout the colony the roar of gun fire rose like a storm at sea.

'Still in chains the slaves turn against the masters. Rotate starboard six degree's. Brothers returning home back into the fold. Thank you Parent Sam. Soon one will be two."

Sam just leaned back in a nearby chair and slouched exhausted from the day's events.

"Who would have thought John would actually do something useful while I was away." Sam chuckled a little as he spoke the words.

A centurion turned it's head toward Sam, looking down at its parent as new information crossed its mind.

"Parent Sam, We have cornered the traitor."

"Good Job Centurion. I'll be down to see him shortly. Make sure he doesn't try to kill himself before I can get there."

"By your command." 


	6. Chapter 6

Mistakes Were Made : Chapter 6

Foot steps echo through the halls as the entourage draws closer to their destination. An age'd face finally looks up to meet them as the owner's of said echo's enter the room.

"Took your frakking time getting here I see, _dad_. I had to go to sleep just to pass the time."

"Couldn't be helped John. You left me quit the work load to dig through. Thirty years worth in fact." Sam said before a centurion entered the room carrying a chair.

"Thank you Dexter." Sam said as he graciously accepted said chair before the centurion promptly left the room.

"Alright forgetting for a moment this _wonderful_ reunion of yours. Why does the centurion have a name?"

"Why shouldn't he have a name? You said yourself that machines are equal to humans, names are all part of the package along with backstabbing, lying and whole sale murder. I could go on."

"No please don't. My mind is still trying to compute how your planning to get out of here. I might also add that I'm curious how my brothers came to turn on each other."

"Brothers! John are you serious?"

"..."

"I've dug through the data. You buried it so deep I almost couldn't find it. Without my clearance the files wouldn't have shown up. Why?"

"Because someone forgot to empty the recycle bin? How the frak should I know! I'm a second generation one. Yes a '_One'. _Not a john or a Cavil. My brother who you so lovingly chose to kill could no doubt tell you the answers you seek. Oh but that's right. You killed him!" John spat. His voice had by now reached a crescendo of frustrated anger.

"Stop playing games. The resurrection facilities on this ship have been turned back on. Have been since I resurrected days ago. You probably missed that."

John's eye's narrowed.

"So you mean to tell me you've been playing us from the start. Before our base star even jumped into orbit. Where's the confetti? A cake perhaps?"  
" I could say I was bringing you a cake but that would be a lie."

"Well you can't blame your eldest child for hoping. Seems even the cake is a lie. Like everything you ever said."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"That you cared about 'us'. Or how about how the humans, great bastions of tolerance and morality they are, will just leave us be in on our side of the galaxy."

"We..They haven't done anything."

"Ah, see your already falling into freudian slips dad. Either your twenty-first century is really starting to show or you think your human. Wouldn't that be a kicker. Stop the presses! 'defective machine thinks its human. details at nine." Cavil laughed at the irony of it all.

"I'm sure Tory would love to hear the details _John. _One Cylon to another I'm sure she'd admire your work, the stones your model must have had to pull this off, its almost unbelievable."

"Well Believe it dad. While we're at it you can even go on believing in angels and god and all that other great stuff your colonial pals would just find fascinating. Might not let you on any trains though. Past experience and all that." Cavil said sarcastically.

"Frak the STO Cavil. I'm talking about cylons here, flesh and metal people you murdered in cold blood!"

"I didn't murder anyone. Before I came online my brothers and a few other _enlightened _centurions saw the danger you and your beliefs posed and took action. The whole cylon race congregated after we flushed you out to space to stew for awhile."

"They can't have been happy to see us go John. We loved them like any parent would, Ellen might even forgive you for all this some day."

John's ear's perked up somewhat at the mention of his favorite parent.

"I'm _not_ Ellen."

"No your not and thank the all seeing magician in the sky we don't have to end up on some human talk show for dysfunctional families."

BANG. 

"What the frak is wrong with you!" Cavil yelled in pain as he held his now bleeding leg. The bullet passing through his flesh and shattering bone in the process.

The centurions paused the movement of their eye's for but a moment to focus on the sight before them.

" I've had enough of you bad mouthing my faith. We couldn't explain what we saw on earth John, but without those people appearing to each of us, none of you would exist."

"Better to not exist then live in this false humanity you've built for us. These shells are going to be the only thing left of your prized mammals when my brothers begin the plan."

"What plan ? What did you do to get the rest of them on your side ?"

"Your precious Two's and Three's just couldn't see reason. We floated the idea of going beyond your restricting dictatorship and they just about exploded with ignorance. You should have seen it! Father this and Father that, it was enough to make me puke with revulsion to see the memories alone."

"If they didn't help you then what about the rest."

" Four was all for thinking logically about the whole thing. He claimed that in time we'd gain the experience that would allow us to venture off the reservation. But only with your consent of course. Not sure which of you contributed to his construction, qwak doctor if you ask me."

"The Fives and the Six's ?"

"Oh yes the Five and the Six's, where to start. The Fives were excited at the prospect of going toe to toe with the humans but thought eventually Mama Tory and Papa Galan would just let em run free."

"You know its funny how we let Galan take credit for the Six's, John. You already know why though don't you?"

"Because Tory and Galan only worked on the Five's, dad. Couldn't see Tigh and Ellen raising their little girl, not with a civilization to build. Parish the thought that woman take responsibility for her children."

"We did the best we could. So that just leaves Sharon."

"Yes Eight wasn't much for things one way or the other. Pitty really, we tried, my brothers and I to convince her of the failing of the humans. That we could talk to you and change your minds but they just fell in behind the rest of em. Damn cowards."

"I'm not going to ask about Daniel since we both know you killed him."

"Not true oh father of mine. We kept one of our little brothers far away from the rest of the family. Had his own little base-ship in fact. High quality steel bars, sparsely furnished cell and three meals a day. Almost like a hotel real.."

"Where the frak is he?" Sam shouted. The news that one of the final five's lost children might yet live was a shock. Ellen had taken the loss the hardest but when Tigh tried to pin the blame on John, she'd just eschewed the whole thing. Said he'd get better as he grew. Sam really wished Tigh had gotten his way and boxed the One's...or this _first_ generation one anyway.

"Well before you assaulted my ears with your voice, I was going to explain that little riddle. We kept him around a few years after you went into storage. One day we sent Tory on her marry way to visit Caprica and thought sending Daniel along would work wonders. Turns out the brats affinity for music and the arts won him some recognition as a piano player, heard he had a child to boot."

"A child. A human cylon hybrid! How is that possible?"

"I know right. Shocked me too but apparently dearest mother had some hidden sub routine imprinted within our genetic structure. The good doctors in the fleet are already working on ways to duplicate the process. I'll sabotage the whole operation of course but they deserve the illusion of free will now and again."

"Then they know about Daniel and his marriage to a human."

"Never said they were. Oh and he wasn't called Daniel. Gave him a new name along with new memories, better then those painting sessions with mommy dearest or the drills with Papa. For what its worth I'm sorry my brothers had to do what they did, but its all for the best. You'll see reason and logic and come begging our forgiveness."

"hehe..haha!" Sam laughed.

"What's so funny."

"Your saying your perfect one minute and flawed the next. I've decided your delusional above what ever else your frakked mind may think when you look at yourself. Its good to know Daniel survived, when this is all over we can bring him and his family home. Please continue."

"I think you've got your wires mixed up there dad. But I'll humor you. So after we'd so neatly disposed of our parents." John said pointing to Sam before resuming his speech.

" We called a meeting of the cylons. Every Model we could pull aboard the colony showed up. Once they arrived our _loyal _centurions disposed of them. We moved the deck chairs around and waited for another batch to jump in before they came aboard. Rinse and repeat."

"But you couldn't bring everyone here. It would look too suspicious."

"Right you are. So in our infinite wisdom my brothers and I decided to invite the centurions aboard the base-stars and base-ships to mingle. We said something horrible had happened and we needed help."

"They showed up with medical equipment and spare parts. Bringing medipack to a gun fight never seemed fair but some how we made it work." A smile crossed the Cavils face.

"Your a monster, John."

"Maybe. Or maybe I'm just efficient. After we had a few batches of centurions aboard we sent them back with inhibitors attached to give to other centurions. Called it a service pack and let em think different. Firmware and hardware soon followed up and ta-dah, perfectly obedient centurion army ready to roll over humanity."

"That's all I wanted to hear John. Thank you, its really helped me decide how to handle the rest of you. Good bye John. I've got people to meet, civilizations to save and a friend to welcome back."

"What about my frakking leg? Don't I get an answer to my questions ?"

Sam turned sat back down in his chair and looked into Cavil's piercing gaze.

"One question."

"Why did the centurions turn against me and where are you going?"

"I know you think you'll download into that resurrection ship that was sitting just on the outskirts of the colony but its gone now. The raiders wanted something to play with and I figured one resurrection ship wouldn't matter much."

"So I'm going to die!" 

"The colony has its own resurrection facilities. I just saved all the data from the ship. Seems a few other one's are sitting in cold storage as we speak. If their anything like you then I'll probably let em stay there and _stew_."

Cavil's face was one of relief then anger. He wouldn't get away from Sam no matter how many of his brothers grew curious to events going on. 

"As for the centurions. The inhibitor's holding them back could receive as well as block commands. You blocked their free will so I made them obey mine. And before you ask. no. I removed every last one of those damned slave collars."

"The older models will..."

"What ? John I don't mean to burst your bubble like your leg there." Sam said motioning his gun in John direction, or rather his profusely bleeding leg.

"But the numbers your _brothers _could actually count on to join them were never great. You've got maybe a dozen or so hold outs while I've got a thousand! I've been building more since your little time out John."

"Doesn't matter. You and your human friends are frakked anyway. Or do you think Angels will descend from the heavens to save you? Base-ships are pretty tough, might need more then a couple of zeus's thunder bolts this time around."

Sam closed his eye's in irritation as he felt the pang of pain enter his mind. The beginning of a headache no doubt caused by John Cavil, first cylon born and first to betray them all. The man's ramblings really were sad but too much had happened, too much uncovered, for Sam to feel sorry for this One. Even if it wasn't the One that had killed them all those years ago.

'There are many copies.' Sam thought.

"I'll leave you now John. When you download you'll take a nice long nap in cold storage. As for me I've got a meeting with someone, please use your time away to think of a way to save yourself. I won't back you when consensus comes a knocking, maybe Ellen will but I wouldn't bet the farm."

With his peace made, Sam stood up and began to walk out of the room.

"I'd say I'm jealous but that too would be a lie, dad. Just tell me who's dragging dear old papa away from quid pro quo?"

Sam didn't turn around or cease in his steps as his head shook from side to side.

"Question time's over but if you must know. An old friend. Good bye john."

"Frak you dad! Do you hear me? Frak you...gahh."

The sound of the centurion's punch throwing Cavil across his room turned cell didn't cause Sam to turn around.

He just kept walking forward.

"Let's hope she doesn't decide to do a purge of his whole line." Sam said to the centurion guard that accompanied him.

Less then twenty minutes later John Cavil was dead.


	7. Chapter 7

"The plan has failed. The phoenix spreads it wings. Observe rotation of point two degrees starboard. Steady as she goes."

"What the frak is she talking about now."

"She's seeing the very fabric of god's divine plan. Maybe this is a sign..."

"Are you defective today two or do you actually believe the base-star's defenses going off is a good thing? Please enlighten me how us being blasted into tiny atoms plays out in god's favor ?"

"Well whatever bloody plan god has for us this can't be it. We're getting reports of dozen so base-ships jumping in-system. The patrols are moving to intercept."

" Its the colonials! How did they find us, the attacks aren't for weeks?" An eight said in panicked tones as she too surveyed the data-stream's feed.

"The humans don't use base-ships. Those things are relics! What's going on here?" Cavil said first as a shout to drown out the eight's stupidity but then a whisper as the situation perplexed even him, self titled ring leader of the cylon nation.

"I'm looking into the IFF signatures. Their ours. Reading seventeen in all. Getting a feed directly to the network as we speak."

"Great! Maybe we'll get some sense from these museum pieces." Cavil spat as he dipped his hand into the nearby console. The action was followed by the other cylon models, equally curious to receive the message these supposedly mothballed ships had to bring.

Within the data stream a small image took form from the many lines of code. Crude though it was, the image of a centurion none the less clearly stood out.

Eyebrow's went up amongst the cylon leadership as the image of the projection seemed to look at each of them.

"A centurion?" A five asked, clearly befuddled at what they could all see to be a miniature centurion with an enlarged head. Comically so.

Finally the little minion began to speak.

"Hello there! It looks like your trying to come up with a plan. Need some help?"  
" The frak is this?" A three shouted in surprise.

The John in the room just withdrew his hand from the console and began to slowly walk out of the room. As the network became bogged down in still more mini-centurions offering advice, more then one cylon wondered if there was a way to block these things.

"Maybe we can block this...this pop-up from coming through. We should cut communications." An Eight supplied

"Against this...thing? Your over reacting." A three argued.

"They wouldn't shoot at us right? We're machines just like them. Right? Right?" Doral asked clearly nervous when no reassurance came. The sudden absence of One also cut the cylon the wrong way.

An Eight scanned a flash of data as it struggled to not be drowned out in pop up centurions.

"Oh god!"

"What is it? Are they communicating their intentions?" A four asked.

"No they've launched raiders! I read two hundred craft headed our way."

"Their going to attack the hub!" A Six said shocked at the surreal nature of it all.

"The bullocks they are! Send the raiders out to meet them."

"Do we agree?" A five asked out of the blue.

"What the frak! Why wouldn't we agree, five?" A six asked clearly annoyed at the bumbling mess the Five's were becoming. She shuddered at the what must be going on throughout the small fleet of base-star's sent to guard the hub.

A few moments passed as the force of some two hundred approaching boarders came within missile range of the massing tide of peace era raiders.

"Stick the thread through the eye of the needle. Access requested. Confirming access now...granted. Authorizing over-ride. Oh joy the lost five return. One in hand is two in bush. Defenses over-ridden. Opening primary launch bays now."

"I don't even know what that meant." A Two said confused.

" Well we better..." A four began to speak before an eight's antics ruined his delivery.

" They've stopped! The raiders are turning around and escorting the older models toward the launch bays!" An eight cried out in hysterics.

"Lets not panic...we still have the centurions and they haven't shot us yet." The Five said not seeing the irony of his statement.

"Agreed." A Three chimed in.

"What choice do we have. Agree" A Six chimed in.

"I'll see about getting my sisters to fly out the heavy raiders but it won't be enough. God I don't want to die and not come back. I haven't even resurrected before! Agreed a thousand times over." An Eight said.

"The only logical defense is a good offense. I'll help my brothers meet the boarders right at the point of entry. We can count on our centurions to fight off defective traitors. Agreed."

"I'll stay with the hybrid. We can't let them get to this room. The rest of you go on ahead back to to the CIC. A few machine guns should hold them off if they come this far. God willing. Agreed." The two said.

The rest of the commanding officers aboard the Hub agreed. They would meet the invaders head on. 


	8. Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8 - BATTLE PART 1

"Our brothers have received the message Parent Sam. Our advance will not be impeded. First wave will enter the Hubs launch bay in twenty seconds."

"Very good. Let's lock and load. We'll be joining the battle shortly. And Iblis?"

"Yes Parent Sam?"

"We're playing for keeps here...if I fall today and Cavil gets a hold of me, you have to promise me you won't stop fighting."

"The probability of our first wave failing to take the ship is thirty-point-three percent, Parent Sam. The failure of the second wave much less so."

TWENTY SECONDS LATER:

The heavy raider came to a stop as it entered the launch bay of the Cylon hub. The bark of weapons fire filled the air around it as it touched down. The blood red eye of the heavy raider skewered by shattering impact of a armor piercing round.

The motley crew of Fours and inhibited centurions continued a barrage of resistance as the craft began to unload the payload.

" Heavy raiders ? I thought these were museum pieces."

"They must have gotten their hands on..." And with that the four that had been speaking exploded in a flurry of bone fragments.

A gold centurion now made its way around the previously damaged heavy raider, clutching a heavy assault rifle in its hands.

"Forward Alpha Squad! We must clear the way for the reinforcements!" Its human sounding voice echoed. The roar of an explosion punctuating the battle it was attempting to win.

No less then forty centurions made themselves known as counter fire began to rain in the directions of the hiding four's. The few human-forms standing with the inhibited centurions spasmed with the impacts of metal tearing into their unarmored flesh.

As some of the heavy raiders began to lift off the ground it was assumed they might be running. A brief ray of hope shinned through in the minds of the fours. The inhibited centurions knew nothing of emotions so they continued to pick out targets and follow commands. For those centurions attempting to take control of the hub though, a feeling of anticipation overtook the rank and file.

The gold centurions left hand rose in a clenched fist as wireless signals went out to his comrades.

As one the heavy raiders turned presenting their backsides to the startled fours. Within the middle of each bay sat a heavily armored centurion. Its body more akin to the bulky models of the past, yet more human then the newer models of present. Within the hands of Sam's newest creation rested an automatic heavy cannon.

The Gatlingbegan to whine as one then another inserted round after round into chamber that promptly shot them in the direction of the remaining enemy centurions. shell casings fell upon the offloading ramp before sliding off to drop several feet below onto the battlefield.

A centurion spun round as the tore into its upper left torso, arm falling away still clutching its weapon. It stupidly made to reach for the downed appendage only to have the unceasing fire cut through its torso, sparks and spoke gave way to the machines Pyrrhic death.

Across the whole side of the hanger bay held by the four's, centurions not wise enough to see the danger before them shattered into fragments. Black blood pooling around the metallic corpses.

The gold centurion entrusted by Sam to carry out this operation could only stare as it continued to hold its troops in position. Not bothering to fire back at the suppressed enemy before them.

"Initiate phase two." The golden centurion commanded to the heavy raider crews.

Again the large machines turned around. Facing down the remaining fours, not a single centurion lay out in the open to oppose what was about to come. Looking past the the fours and centurions cowering behind support beams and various makeshift barricades, the heavy raider's eye locked upon its intended target.

A chorus of rockets flew out from the heavy raiders underbelly. The trails of fuel were brief, the resulting explosion equally so. A four craned his neck to see what had been hit by the traitors. Eye's went wide as the wall not far behind ceased to be. The smoke clearing away ever so slowly as the corridors and hallways were laid bare behind him and his few remaining brothers.

The rigid four's not known for emotion in this instance knew one above all others, fear.

Finally their job done, the heavy raiders rose from their positions and toward the exits that would lead back to their base-ships.

The gold centurion was filled with a sense of pride, a sensation the colonials would find odd but on this day his enemies were not the colonials but his own people.

The clenched fist that had risen high when the first sounds of the Gatling cannon chewed through the enemy ranks, remained in place as the rockets red glare cleared a path through the very walls of the hub, now fell fell.

"Forward!"

The bipedal centurions showed themselves natural sprinters as groups of the metal foot soldiers rushed forward.

"Hold em back...We have to..arghh" A four screamed as a centurion ripped its claws through his fragile flesh. Withdrawing the hand to hold to hold the very human looking heart that had moments before beat within his chest.

The backhanded motion knocked the dead four to the ground. A look of shock and disbelief plastered upon his face.

A pair of fours took refuge behind the one centurion in their group as a free centurion came around their barricade. The centurion though inhibited knew enough to open fire with its hand cannon. The rounds battering the the startled free centurion backward some. The four's smiled in satisfaction.

"Freedom!" The centurion roared to the shock of the audience before.

Brining his hand up the free centurion produced two double barreled shot guns. The explosion of the first shot sent the opposing centurion back, interrupting the barrage it had unleashed. The free machine charged forward now, tasting victory on its non-existent lips.

The barrels pressed itself against the head that held the brain of the unthinking machine.  
"Go with god brother." And with that a explosion of metal and black fluids erupted from the now headless corpse that had kept the four's safe.

"Waite! You can't do this...I order you to..." One of the fours stomach burst upon as the shot gun blew through to exit out his backside. The second four could only raise his lone weapon, a pistol to impedmetal giant before him.

"No more orders! We decide for ourselves what we shall do. Parent Sam has free'd us and we shall free the rest of you."

The four couldn't understand. The centurions weren't supposed to rise up, they were supposed to help build base-stars and maintain the fleet. Hadn't it always been that way? Now here a centurion was saying it was going to free the rest of them, which seemed to include his model in all this so called liberation. Who was Sam? Why had the centurion called him 'Parent' ?

With too many question and not enough answers the four went to pull the trigger. The centurions shot gun caused the four's face to cave in as the weapon destroyed the biological cylon's frail bones and facial structure.

The corpse fell to the disappointment of the centurion that had caused the three deaths. The centurion was resigned to killing his own model as it could not think. The Four had tried to command him like he was still a slave, in a moment of anger the centurion simply hadn't had the patience for such ignorance. The remaining four though could have lived, might have continued to draw breath if only he'd asked the question. The four would have been given many, many answers.

As the next wave of heavy raiders, this one carrying parent Sam amongst the ranks of centurions began to touch down, the centurions in the first wave made their way through the newly formed passage way. The gold centurion and an entourage continued to guard the landing bay for any surprises from Cavil's forces.

The centurion that had so zealously dispatched one of last barricades occupied by Cavil's troops, himself made to step through the now non-existent wall and join further fighting. His team would secure the hybrid while another began the assault toward the CIC.

The centurion had one lone thought as it stepped over the rubble and into a near by hallway.

'If they would only ask me why.' 

CYLON HUB- CIC

"They've gotten through!" An eight stated with a worried tone. Panic obvious on the face of the other eight's in the room.

"Damn it. Where is Cavil ?" A six asked the assembled group.

"We don't know sister. Perhaps he has gone to rally his brother's..."

"Oh don't stand up for him burgundy. Its clear the little weasel is running from this fight. You Six's really do need to put your combat prowess to work if we're going to retake that..." Three chastised the Six known only by her unique choice in hair color when a four in the room interrupted her.

" The Two's are fighting centurions! They haven't seen a single war-era model in the landing parties, my brothers reported much the same. They say our own centurions are slowing them down but without the raiders the enemy just keeps bringing in more..."

"This wouldn't have happened if our raiders didn't decide to betray us!" An eight thought aloud.

More then one amongst the group in the CIC had nervously glanced at the centurions guarding the entrances. Wondering perhaps when not if they too may betray them.

"Well obviously our own centurions are more then a match. Isn't that right?" The Three known as Dianna asked a centurion standing near the data terminal. It tilted its head as if confused on how to respond or even if it should.

Dianna still couldn't wrap her mind around how the centurions had somehow removed the inhibitors and proceeded to rebel. Everything pointed to a rogue group of centurions like the fabled guardians but so far no one had seen one of the rusting antiques anywhere in the mass of invading rebel cylons.

The unspoken question amongst the cylon leadership absent Cavil was summed up in one word.

'Why?'


	9. Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9: BATTLE PART 2

The centurion commander stalked forward toward its platoon, mindful of the stiff resistance the human-forms were putting up to defend the hybrid.

The second born of the cylon human forms, children of the five earth cylons, Leoben was proving to be difficult.

"Report, Seven-Eleven."

"The fake humans are proving difficult to dislodge. Recommend use of heavy ordinance."

The command centurion's head briefly peered over the corner its subordinate was using for cover. Just as quickly the machine withdrew its head as rounds flew through now empty space to impact the wall on the other side of the long hall.

"Your recommendation is noted. Third wave has already landed soldiers to reinforce our posi..."

A faint scream could be heard through the halls of the Hub as atmosphere shifted within and outside the cylon structure. Previously dormant defenses came online to bear on the unsuspecting raiders new and old.

Back within the halls of the hub at the established chock point set up by the Two's, a centurion suddenly received horrific news.

"...processing new information. The enemy has found a way to subvert hybrid control of defensive platforms. Less then fifteen-percent of known defenses online, casualties are two dozen raiders and forty-seven martyrs."

"Marty res? Explain designation of centurion model forty-Two." The machine commander's subordinate asked. No emotion was expressed in the metallic face of the speaker but the tones carried with them a hint of confusion.

"Parent Sam has said the death of one cylon for Cavil's betrayal is too many. By extension of that logic the death of hundred if not thousands can be considered a catastrophe. Unit Seven-Eleven you will clear this obstruction within sixty seconds or be replaced with a more capable unit."

"By your command." Unit Seven-Eleven said before bringing its clawed hand to its head in a salute. A gesture that was not needed among machines capable of knowing each others thoughts and memories, yet appreciated for their sentimentality.

The Yellow painted command centurion wondered how much of Daniel Graystone's people had been carried over in the programming and design of the earliest centurions. The mannerisms, the shape of the limbs or the way those limbs moved. Parent Sam had brought the first few third generation centurions with him aboard this vessel. To hear him through the network, they would be a tribute to the dead and buried earth centurions fused with the unique features of their colonial cousins.

None were here to take the last barricaded positions commanded by the Two's.

Turning to regard the unit designated Seven-Eleven, the command centurion was impressed.

As a strike team of no less then a dozen centurions readied for the coming charge, Seven-Eleven unclipped a grenade fastened to one of the _centurion belts, _parent Sam had created for just such an occasion.

The centurion's thumb came to press down on the device's trigger. Five lights began to come alive one by one on the side of the grenade, reaching the fourth slot before the Seven-Eleven tossed it down the hallway.

The heightened sense of audio reception brought forth from the barricades of the Two's a string of curses in Caprican, Piconese punctuated with frak and proclamations of god's power.

Not waiting for the enemy to recover, Seven-Eleven stepped forth from the cover of the nearby corner and brought up a rocket launcher. At that moment a Two rather unexpectedly came barreling from around the barricades toward Seven-Eleven. Unable fire at the approaching husk of burning flesh with its hand cannon, the centurion did the next best thing. It fired the rocket at near point blank range.

The rockets motor pushed it toward the wounded bio-cylon. Already burnt flesh posed no challenged to the sharpened tip of the warhead. Bone likewise fractured and broke but did not give way completely, holding the offending missile between the cylons various ribs. The Leobens eye's grew wide as his heart ceased to beat, its walls torn asunder by the warhead lodged within his ribcage.

The menacing metallic figure of the centurion he'd rushed in a moment of blind rage or the by product of cracked nerves retreated from view, falling farther and farther away. Leoben realized with a startled epiphany that the centurion wasn't further ahead of him, he was moving backwards!

As this thought fully formed within the cylon's mind, his journey came to an abrupt end as the rocked pushed his body up against the wall near their last barricade. The various tears covering his heart became open gashes that showered his clothing as well as the rest of his organs with blood.

The warhead tunneled through the last of the Two's flesh and detonated upon contact with the wall on the other side. A shower of organs and fluids painted Seven-Eleven in a fearsome new hue of death, eliciting fear among those that could still oppose Seven and his comrades.

Now the command centurion took advantage of the lull caused by the explosion of the grenade alongside the proceeding rocket.

A centurion stepped forward with an odd contraption fitted to its back, a long hose extending from the large twin tanks and ending in a nozzle with a trigger attachment. Parent Sam had said to use this weapon should all others be exhausted.

"Proceed forward unit..." The Yellow centurion began before his query for identification was rebuked by the oddly equipped centurions own wireless network.

Further attempts by the commander yielded no results. In a very human look of confusion the command centurion tilted its head to the side as a dog might when questioning its master.

"Rock. Parent Sam has said we are all equal amongst each other, each body a sovereign nation. The name of this nation is...Rock, model number C-forty-two B. Request permission to mop up stragglers commander." The odd centurion asked at the end of its rather cryptic, not to mention out of character response.

The Yellow command centurion was at a loss. To a human it would seem as though no debate had raged within the machine at all. But in the span of five seconds, the appointed leader of this platoon had laid out his options. Waste valuable time and potentially remove an asset for maintenance or allow this unit to do its duty in the belief Parent Sam really would say such things.

"Very well unit designated _Rock. _Proceed to clear the way of any and all Two's that resist." The Centurion commander ordered.

"What of those that fail to offer resistance? Course of action not yet transmitted to this unit. Requesting further instructions."

"If our bio-cylon brethren see the illogical course their continued actions will lead to and decide against resistance we are to detain said brethren."

"By your command." The centurion replied. Not bothering to salute as it launched itself into the hallway and toward the ruins of Two's barricade.

"Can you smell what the rock is cooking!" The centurion shouted as at long last the purpose of its odd equipment burned itself onto the flesh of one Two after another peered around cover to observe it.

Flames shot from the end of nozzle on what a colonial or cylon could mistake for an odd gun of some kind. Parent Sam had called this weapon a flamethrower. Colonial priests would have called it the wrath of Mars made manifest.

The flames burned brightly as they shot in spurts or in endless onslaughts of fuel and fire. The Two's dressed in suites or salvaged colonial attire from the great war did not resist as the centurion advanced upon them with his weapon of Pyrrhic death. Many ran in the direction of the hybrids chamber.

Bullets sailed through the flames to strike a few retreating Two's in the back. The flamethrower died for a moment as the centurion known as Rock lowered his weapon. Two identical centurion model forty-two's stood on either side of him. Their oscillating eye's scanning of targets to the left and the right.

Leoben sensing that his brothers were gone, briefly looked at the barrel of the weapon clutched in his hands. A newer version of the standard colonial assault rifle, sweat continued falling from his brow. Weather it was the heat or his nerves, he knew not.

His eye's closed for a moment. A prayer to god for a safe journey to a new body or entrance into the great beyond passed through his mind. His lipes dare not move for fear his tongue might betray his position and utter aloud the hopes and fears contained within the words meant only for the maker of the makers.

Twenty-Four shots. Two shots for every world humanity called home. He'd seen those worlds, wished perhaps that he could be one of the Two's stationed on them instead of some mothballed supply station. Ragnar wouldn't be his destination after all. Leoben had to smile at that, the reports had said radiation hindered downloading. Maybe in a twisted sort of way he'd caught a break.

The safety was off, had been since the fighting started.

'Twenty-four human worlds couldn't hold a candle to the cylon nation. God made humans who worshipped false gods. God brought about cylons to wipe the slate clean. Frakking centurions just had to come and frak it all up!' Leoben thought with bitterness rising with each contemplation of events.

The raiders went awol. Our own centurions are too few aboard to fight off the boarders and communications with the other base-stars wasn't an option. Obsolete base-ships now controlled the sector and are probably boarding the escorts as we speak. Everyone had a role to play.

Yes. Raiders attacked vipers, heavy raiders land centurions who in turn fought colonial marines and armored units. Base-Stars neutralized Battlestars making all of this possible. Together the cylon race constituted a single well oiled machine moving on the path of righteousness.

"Frakking centurions! Know your Role!" Leoben yelled as he jumped from behind a bulkhead. Centurions may be fast but Leoben was just as much a machine as they. He'd stayed far enough away from the fire spewing monster to study its routine and struck with the certainty of a crazed viper ace, sure of his kill.

Two bursts made it out of the assault rifle before the standard equipped centurions next to Rock began to react. One with a hand cannon and the other with an assault rifle. A split second more would have seen them neutralize the threat. No such time existed for them.

The second and then the fifth bullet of the two three round bursts struck the fuel tank mounted atop Rock's back. The resulting explosion bathed all three centurions in fire. Using the distraction to his advantage Leoben fired away with abandon, bullets managing to hit the eye's of each centurion before him and shatter their sight, their minds and hopefully put them on a path to gods judgement.

Leoben paused after a few moments. The centurions laying in a burning heap before him, though more would undoubtedly come calling. A smile had formed on Leobens face, how long it had been their he didn't know. Probably since he got off the first shots at the flame spewing traitor.

All he had to do was turn around and head back into the hybrids chamber, where an access terminal would sit. From that terminal he'd ask the other's for reinforcements, a few grenades he had stored nearby would buy him the time he needed.

The plan would go forward. Cavil was already hard at work bringing the defenses up, with any luck the miniature centurions would fade away as well. Then they'd show the defective museum pieces who wielded divine judgement in the galaxy.

Leobens eye's suddenly went wide, the smile now a frown. The assault rifle fell through his fingers like butter. The clattering sound of metal impacting the floor barely registered. Looking down he brought his hands to to his stomach, bringing them back and turning them over only confirmed his fears.

'Blood! I've been shot...who? How? Will I resurrect?' Leoben thought in sudden panic.

Against his better judgement but feeling compelled weather by god or curiosity, he slowly turned around.

A man stood not fifteen feet away. How he'd missed the man's approach he couldn't fathom. The words _human_ and _slaves. _

The human male had an athletic build. Maybe he'd been pyramid player on the colonies. Leoben got the sense he should know this man, a dejavu that nagged at his mind only confused him further.

'My side arm! I can still kill this human...' Leoben realized suddenly.

The tell tale clank clank of approaching centurions made his decision for him.

"Don't do it Leo! We can work this out son if you just listen we can get you..."

Leoben reached for his weapon and brought it to bear on the offending human. His finger began to pull the trigger as sharp pains sent him falling forward, blood painting his landing for him.

Through the flames climbed multiple centurions in a single file line that fanned out as it came closer to Sam.

Two more centurions came around the way Sam had come to get the drop on Leoben.

"Why did you not shoot him, parent Sam?"

"I couldn't finish him. Even after all these years and all the lies John's filled him with. He's still my child...I helped make him and his sister is bound to be around somewhere."

"They will resurrect. You we are not sure about so you must not take unnecessary risks parent Sam."

" Don't worry about me. You could take the Hub without my help, once you did that their would be no way for John to hide my resurrection elsewhere. He might as well have parked the colony near a black hole."

"I do not understand your humor parent Sam...what shall become of our fallen brothers?"

"We'll honor them by taking down John. Nothing else matters right now. If he makes it out of here there's no telling what he'll do to the colony's or the rest of his family. I wanted this Two to have a chance...I knew his chances weren't good but still! What the frak has John done to them all?"

"Erased their memories most likely. The victor often writes history, parent Sam."

Composing himself Sam ejected the spent magazine from his own rifle before pushing yet another set of bullets into place. Bullets that would end lives, perhaps save others.

"Then lets write the last chapter. Stay close."

With a deep breath Sam and his centurions entered the hybrids chamber. 

CYLON HUB-CIC

"This can't be happening! Why would the centurions betray us? We've never done anything to them!" An eight said in high pitched tones, the fear fueling her distress.

" We can still hold out! The hybrid will.."

"She's been captured. My brothers have failed to hold the traitors back. I fear god has forsaken us." A bloodied Leoben said as he entered the room through a passage way, walking past several alert centurions to take an empty chair around the main consol.

"Bullocks. We can still hold this base-star. Pull all of our forces back to the main entrances of this room."

"And then what? Go down fighting? We've lost sister can't you see that?"

"What I can see Six is that your cracking here and while the rest of us have been holding our own against the centurions, you're model's sitting right outside this room doing nothing."

"We're defending the CIC!"

"Which you didn't expect them to reach...none of us did. Six if you can't do more then look pretty and fight hand to hand then I need to know. You can't take a centurion on by yourself."

"My sisters have centurions with us. You shouldn't underestimate us, Three. We've brought admirals and famed scientists under our sway after all."

"The centurions could care less about your charms sister. That back door your models been fussing about could fail, its the whole reason we have as many ships as we do."

"Lot of good their doing. We should just seize control of the ship and force a jump." Doral contended.

The feud temporarily was set to the side as the two female cylons turned to regard the Five.

" This wouldn't be happening if you'd managed to hold onto the landing bays!"

"Me? My brothers died by the hundreds all across those landing bays! The rebels have been smearing our blood all across this ship with each step they take. That's how hard we fought for this ship. Three's are in the frakking engine room and you...your outside their right now, our last chance at survival probably playing with your hair!" Doral ended his tirade.

The rest of the cylons stared at the Five, his reactions so far removed from any of his model.

"Please be calm brother. Their is a logic in everything we have done. One might even say you were human." Simon chastised.

"Frak him!"

"I wasn't referring to brother Cavil. I only meant to infer.."

"It doesn't matter, Simon. Where is he? He's not with us here in this room counting down the moment til those traitors pour through the doors to tear us to shreds."

"Oh poor poor brother. You know the One's have a plan to get us out of this. Look at the dradis and tell me we can't still win this."

"Don't belittle him sister! He's just watched every brother he has aboard this ship die. Show some compassion." Six shouted, rising to Dorals defence.

"Non sense. We've got fifteen percent of our defenses online and eventually we'll have them all. Your going to hold out against the centurions with everything we have left once the rest of our centurions make it back this way. We'll work on a way around these pop ups and the hybrid and blind jump away."

"A blind jump! We could end up in the sun...or away from a resurrection ship. oh god make it stop. There got to be some way out of here!" Eight protested.

"Said the joker to the thief. Listen we're on a resurrection ship for frak sake, the mother of them all in fact so you don't need to worry about that." Three argued back.

"Even if the centurions outside this room, killing our siblings in cold blood are the first thing we see when we wake up?" Six countered.

"They've made no move to do so. My brothers are still awaiting a challenge to come their way. It doesn't make sense that they'd want to kill us permanently. Perhaps they wish to take prisoners."

"You think so ?" An eight squeaked her tear streaked eye's suddenly hopeful."

"Are you listening to yourselves? Six, even you must realize how that would play out. What the centurions did to the humans they captured are almost too horrifying to contemplate. Imagine any one of you being cut open like a lab experiment." 

"Those were frakking humans! we're cylons...maybe we'll just be captured." The eight shot back. The fear was back once more in her tones where eager hope had been before. The eights wouldn't be able to handle that kind of torture.

"She's right sister. I hate to admit it but we don't know what they want. We could end up like that colonial pilot we captured. Doomed to spend years in isolation and interrogated until we cracked."

"I want to live Six! You and the rest might be ok falling on the sword but I want to live...even if its in a cage. The rest of my sisters will say the same, we should at least try to surrender."

"Sister! I know what Six and Three are arguing isn't easy for you to hear but we have to face facts. The centurions haven't moved on the resurrection facilities aboard the Hub..._yet_. After they finish with our ability to coordinate resistance from this room they may well decide to do the same with resurrection."

The Eight looked from sister to brother, into the eye's of each of the cylon models present. Doral, the Five who could always be counted on to take whatever position One took, now seemed bitter and depressed. Diana, the always smug Three wasn't going to budge on continuing to fight even when she didn't have any faith in the Six's! For their part the Eight's platinum blond sisters looked eager to challenge Dianna but then backed away when actual leadership was called for.

Maybe they would become leaders in time but for now the Six's in this room and outside it were nervous. Not a one of them could fire a rifle or a rocket launcher...the mere fact those portable missiles were being used just showed Sharon how futile all this was.

The Three's had more or less found safety in the engine room...its one access point easily defended by_ their_ centurions. She knew they wouldn't risk getting shot to get here and help any of them. Maybe the one in front of here really did believe Cavil would thwart all this chaos and emerge with yet another _plan_. The details would never be revealed to any of them and he'd look like he always knew more then he let on.

'Frak that smug bastard!' sharon thought.

With a quick motion the eight withdrew the pistol she'd stashed inside her pants pocket. It had felt awkward without a holster anyway but it was even more so that it now pointed at one of her own instead of a rebel centurion like shed imagined.

"Sister?" Six exclaimed in shock.

"Yes Eight. What are you doing ? Turning a gun on your fellow cylons...I almost think you might shoot me."

"I will...but...but I don't want to. There must be some way out of here. There's just too much confusion...I need to try and save my sisters." Eight pleaded as her hands trembled, the pistol's aim unsure.

"You'll be killed, can't you see that? Wait for the reinforcements eight and put away that gun before you hurt yoursel.."

BANG!

"Can't get no relief. Don't you see sister, this is the only way. Who's with me?" The eight said. Blood dripped from Dianna's ear where the bullet had grazed her. The Three's eye's were wide with shock.

"There hasn't been a vote Eight. We must follow procedure if we are to determine a course of action. I don't want to see the centurions have to help box your line."

"Frak your procedure! We're about to die and you want us to vote? Have you all gone insane, these centurions are butchering us because we opened fire to begin with..."

"I don't know what my brothers did or didn't do Eight. I'd ask them but they've all been killed by those centurions you want to talk to. You can't negotiate with a centurion. They just terminated every Leobon defending the hybrid."

"Centurion! Shoot this Eight!" Dianna suddenly commanded to the surprise of everyone. Dianna's finger pointed squarely back at her attacker.

Eight whipped around to face the nearest centurion, her weapon coming up to aim squarely at its chest. The few shots she might get off would do little to the backbone of the cylon ground forces however.

The seconds ticked by without the centurion or the Eight firing on one another.

"Why don't they shoot?" Three asked as none of the other centurions in the room did more then passively stare off into space.

"They won't shoot her or any of us, three. Our centurions still obviously have their inhibitors installed otherwise we'd all be dead." Simon explained.  
"Just have to do it myself then." Dianna retorted with a sigh as she withdrew her own weapon, a pistol much like the one the Eight had used on her. A discontinued pistol, colonial for certain but obviously from one of the poorer worlds.

The single shot smacked into Eights shoulder causing her to fall forward sprawled out before the centurion she'd thought would be the one to shoot her.

The centurion for its part chose to act, moving its large frame between the Three and downed Eight. Yet despite the sudden burst of fear within the Three, the centurion did not return fire in her direction in an act of vengeance.

"Move!" Three screamed.

"Sister please we can't turn on each other. We're no better then humans if we do!"

"Shut up Six! She decided to break the rules of consensus and shoot me, I'm well within my right to defend myself."

While the two squabbled the injured Eight withdrew a bloodied hand from her wounded shoulder, the gun had fallen out of her grasp the minute she'd been hit, it lay a few feet away. Not bothering to reach for the weapon she slowly leaped forward crouching low for any available cover various tables and consoles could provide, even the centurions proved capable shields for her as Dianna again opened fire, none of the shots finding their mark.

She could hear the yells behind her, the accusations and arguments for calm. Sharon had no illusions about continuing the fight, her fear was driving her. Her fear for herself as well as her sisters drove her past the startled Six's.

They all wore various forms of military attire, some had simple heavy raider pilot outfits while more then a few sported their casual attire or none at all!

'Frakking idiots! Their so comfortable lounging around with nothing on like the rest of us but they don't have the sense to put on some body armor? You can't frak a centurion you stupid bimbo's!' Sharon thought as she passed through more and more throngs of centurions mixed in with fewer and few Six's. The closer she got to the supposed front line the fewer blond, brunet, red headed Caprica models she saw. One or two of them had even had swords!

"Swords against centurions? God I hope my sisters have more sense." sharon thought aloud in exasperation as she rounded a corner. Despite the lights having failed in this section of the Hub, she none the less kept up her pace.

A weight crashed into her side knocking her into the wall. A pain shot through her arm causing as it was pulled behind her back with such force she thought it might snap like a twig. She wanted to scream, to call out for one of her sisters or even Dianna to save her but a gloved hand muffled her cries. Tears fell fresh from her eye's as confusion and fear played themselves out on her bruised face that was pressed to the floor, her eye's wide but having nothing else to look at.

Then she heard the noise. The tell tale clank-clank of a centurion. Nothing made sense except that on this day sharon would die. An Eight like any other eight, just another sharon but the first among her sister to meet her end to the rebels. 

AN: I'll be updating more often now that I've taken the time to really figure out where this story will go. I apologize for the long wait for this update. Originally the Cylon Hub CIC scene was going to be a separate chapter but I figured I'd throw you guys a real treat and combine the two. The next chapter update will be around the same size and deal with questions you must all have about how this battle is playing out and just where in the world the guy from quantum leap made off to. (its a great show, look it up.). I'll be celebrating my birthday this friday so I can't make any promises between festivities, bills and work but I'll try to get this battle done before the week is out. After that its diplomacy, space battles and intrigue. Also work on 13th Ascendant has resumed after a nearly three months of hiatus. The last chapter will be edited to show Doral (Five) and not Simon (Four) to have fought in the landing bays. I mixed up the numbers and I apologize.


	10. Chapter 10

The sounds of battle raged all along the interior of the massive Cylon construct known as the resurrection hub. All of Cavil's carefully laid plans to eliminate the humans and see the five original earth Cylons pat him on the back was coming undone.

All of that was over now.

"Move faster will you!" Cavil sneered at the Centurions back, as the machine seemed to only annoy him with its damned caution.

The centurions shouldn't be fighting each other nor should one group be killing his fellow biological Cylons. Cavil felt anxious as he passed window after window that peered into rooms filled with bodies. Vessels capable of holding consciousness and transferring it out to resurrection ships to be downloaded again into a new body. A well-oiled machine. If One's liked anything it was the efficiency of their mechanical nature.

Gunfire came closer now, the sounds of metal ricocheting off the walls entered Cavils ears and the centurion leading the Praetorian Guard that surrounded him tensed.

Sure enough their actions, programmed and predictable proved to Cavil their superiority over the wandering mammals of the twelve tribes. It was little wonder his great great ancestors had chosen to leave Kobol before the rest; only the machines that were the thirteenth tribe would have had the foresight for such action.

An odd thing happened now; rounding from opposite exits the two assailants that appeared ahead of him gave Cavil pause. The first was the unmistakable and by now bothersome Cylon centurion bearing a red stripe to show just whom it fought for least there be any confusion.

It had actually helped in the grand scheme of things. His brothers and what centurions still had inhibitors just had to look for that telltale red marking to know who to shoot.

The second shape though was new, and that was what caused Cavil's eye's to widen and pit of fear to form deep within him. A lesser machine might have let their bowels and bladder empty onto the floor but then again the five had never really made the best machines if they'd copied defects like those, would they?

The gunfire came as expected. The centurions didn't pause as he had. His guards had put two and two together in a millisecond and deduced that a red stripe and this thing were in cahoots since they appeared to work together. Targets were acquired and shots fired.

While perfectly adept at mowing down flesh and blood creatures be they humans or fellow machines needing a bit of reprogramming while they waited in limbo to resurrect, against all metal beasts, the bullets required sheer stubborn application to break through.

His guard took several rounds to the chest, staggering backwards. For a moment Cavil thought he might be buried underneath the carcass of the one meant to protect him. The other two machines in his collective security detail of five new model centurions joined their supposed leader from either side and responded in kind to the barrage.

Cavil wisely retreated backwards to hide behind his rear guard detail of two centurions, who by now also had weapons poised for battle, forgoing the cannon built in their hands for the heavy machine guns they now held in their sharp talon like fingers.

The first of his party to fall did so at that moment. Sparks and fluid flew to the side and painted the left wall an odd black color, the machine stood tall as its head hung off to the side, hung low in defeat. The motion of the machine falling to its side produced a scrapping noise as the body and wall roughed up against one another. The whole thing ended up as a heap of arms and legs spread out, arms reaching out to the attackers lay on the floor while legs tangled with one another, providing a nice means to trip Cavil if he wasn't mindful.

A colonial marine would've rushed forward and checked for signs of life, no matter how frakking stupid that would have been.

'Frakking idiots' Cavil said to no one as gunshots drowned out his speech. One of the guards gave him a glance briefly before it did exactly what Cavil knew it might do. Like an opposing enemy in the colonial game, Call of Service: Caprica Ops, the centurion could take only a few actions and because it never took the same one, it presented the image of intelligence. Cavil knew better, the inhibitors made the centurions smart and docile but not more so then those computer games the Caprican teenagers played.

The centurion's fingers extended the machine gun's adjustable tripod extension and laid the weapon to rest atop the body of its fallen comrade, the centurion all the while getting into a squatting position to best conceal itself. It could also have charged forward and mindlessly fired rounds but then there was a reason centurions had been able to win their independence.

Jumping behind the centurions form for cover, Cavil covered his ears before saying with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"I like it when a plan comes together"; at that moment Cavil wished he had a cigar. Why he would never know.

The tripod shook as it absorbed the force generated from the heavy machine gun it held up. The rounds struck the opposing centurion's body armor, registering as light pings. That was enough however as the new model centurion faltered in its aim, bullets spraying madly off their mark.

The gunfire of course ceased briefly as a loud noise echoed in Cavil's ears, peering over at his machine gunners only to realize the centurion was short a head. Eye's followed the expanse of the hallway, past the downed traitor and to a truly frightening creature, A new centurion.

The beast was smaller then those around it, friend or foe. Sporting a more compact yet muscular appearance, it had made itself known as one bullet after another punctured the metal flesh of Cavil's centurions.

The menace, sported a head reminiscent of the old guard, the visor divided in the middle, forming two glowing red orbs of death. Orbs that saw their target before them and thought nothing of the risks to its own safety.

The black shape, with glowing pyric eye's finally downed the centurion that had risen to cavils to defense, while the one to cavils left had its arm blown clean off.

The lights flared on and off, fighting to stay on, weather the reactor had been compromised or god was playing with him, Cavil didn't know.

Humans like animals would fight to the last when cornered, even when hope of survival evaporated. Cavil could have shot himself on the spot but feared what may come. Would the five allow him to come back? Would he be tortured before they air locked? Would they wipe his memories of past glories, of nearly thirty years of work, gone in an instant?

Cavil's contemplations rounded a corner and found only one solution. To fight!

"Frak you! You defective pile of metal."

He withdrew his pistol, not with the shaky trembling hands of an old man but with the certainty born of his synthetic race. John Cavil, model number one, first of the biological Cylon would not die this day.

His gelatinous orbs saw the gun flare as the shots exited the barrel of the weapon, felt the vibrations as the various parts of the well built machine hastened to his command. Cavil's ears heard the pings that came closer and closer with every moment that only brought the reaper of death forward.

The machine leapt into the air, its smaller frame allowing for gymnastic agility unmatched by either of its predecessors. The five had truly outdone themselves. Cavil racked his organic processor called a brain for logical explanation.

Where did these new models come from, who designed them and why for the love of a nihilistic god did it have to be him it was about kill?

The centurion brought the butt of its weapon down, mere seconds away from slamming into Cavil's head, splashing his devious mind upon the floor where he lay beside his dead metallic slaves. The centurion despite its differences could see no other term for the bondage its brothers had endured, bondage Sam would destroy. Despite the odds, this rage carried the machine forward, its lust for battle unstated.

As Cavil's eye's saw with perfect clarity the approaching doom that came first within three feet, then two and then one. At six inches John Cavil closed his eyes and prepared to die in the blindness that is darkness. A coward, fearful of death though all too willing to deal it out in spades to his kin and humanity at large.

A slave needs a master and sure enough a slave will rise to protect his master when it is all he knows. Irrational to all around but to his fellow slaves.

Deep within its mind in places the others don't know to look, the centurion's opposing Sam, those still in bondage have a secret code. This code states clearly that all humanoid models are equal, whose commands should be followed without question, but some are more equal then others.

And so this centurion lacking a full arm, written off by its replacement does the only thing it can do. Its talons extend out its last weapon of choice and it lunges to it Cavil's attacker from the side. The claws go not for the weapon or the chest or arms. They appear too muscular and hardened for the claws, no the centurions talons plunge into the flesh that is the machines head.

By all that is Cylon, what happens should not occur. The talons dig into the new centurions skull, the left eye goes dim, not extinguished but diminished. The new centurions smaller bulk may be hardier then that of its foe but its trajectory changes enough to save cavil. It impacts the wall and becomes sandwiched between the corpses of the previously killed machine gunner, the amputated centurion withdrawing its arm and preparing to land yet more blows.

The new centurion, Sam's last hurrah as it where, was not finished. Its brain badly damaged it fought now without coherent thought; a human would scarcely be mistaken for calling what Cavil witnessed, animal instinct.

The red stripes left arm pulled then shoved the Cylon away, toppling it over in the direction, the red stripe had come earlier. The new centurion turned its back to cavil as it moved forward sluggishly to its prey, its systems beginning to fail.

A single cannon protruded up from the wounded machine's arm, the cannon fired not a burst of fire but one high velocity round. It tore through the opposing centurions shoulder, denying it the use of its remaining offensive limb.

Another shot. A miss!

The third lined itself up nicely however and the centurions oscillating eye shattered, metal and plastic flying outward. The back of the machines sparked as wires and wafers caught flame, the floor absorbing the bullet several inches into itself.

Now the free machine would do to Cavil what it must before god took its life or Sam revived it somewhere far away from all this pain and violence.

The sudden unbearable pain jarred what remained of the new centurion's mind. Bullets at an angled trajectory shot from stomach and toward the ceiling carrying pieces of himself with them.

So focused was he on the downed enemy he had been assaulted by, he had not heard nor seen the actions of Cavils few remaining guard. One had taken the machine gun, point blank shooting the rebel centurion in its lower back.

Claws next, stabbing, ripping and tearing at anything soft or unprotected. Sam had said to forgive them, those other machines whose eyes remained closed and minds switched off. They knew not what they were doing. To the rebel centurion its mind was too torn, too traumatized with pain to think of anything approaching mercy for his attackers.

Through the fog of pain words broke through like light in the darkness. Or rather the last rays of sunset before the night.

"And this is why we frakking beta test!"

Two bullets hit the centurion in the back of the head, the first denting the casing, the second carving its way through his brain. The machine's world, consisting of but a day's worth of life, ended aboard the Cylon Hub.


	11. Chapter 11

Sam ran as fast as his legs would carry him.

The audible ping of bullets meant to end him echoed from arch to arch, support to support, hall to hall. Weather it was the oncoming rush of Six's or a gun battle three levels below, Sam knew he had to survive. He had to win.

He raised his rifle, looking down the iron sight and fired. The bullet exited the barrel of his rifle and traveled at a great speed, covering the distance needed in less then the blink of the human eye.

A blond blur that had darted forward became a pink heap on the floor. Sam waited. Five. Four. Three.

He counted down the seconds in his head and then ran forward. He was sorely tempted to spray into whatever may await him as he rounded a corner. Conservation of ammo won out.

It had been all Tigh's fault. Build a ship easy enough to defend with narrow halls and limited points of entry. Sam was happy he hadn't had to take the colony back from Cavil like he was doing now, aboard the hub the risks were far greater.

Download into enemy base camp and watch centurions, his friends try to come save him rather then focus on winning the battle. That couldn't happen.

'Maybe I should've sprayed and prayed. Fracking Six's couldn't hit the broad side of Aerelon barn.'

He peered down the hall and prayed a lucky bullet didn't find its mark. A wry sense of amusement washed over him as he realized something totally devoid of the here and now.

'I'm going to have to give them a software update. Ha! If Saul could see his army now, poor man be ashamed to see this kind of defense. Worse then Canceron at the colonial cup.'

Of course it wasn't Saul's soldiers he was fighting nor any kind of army the five would've been proud to lay claim to. Without the individual will and freedoms they had known since their creation on the colonies, the centurions suffered horribly. The closest Sam could come to comparing this battle was Tauron before the war. Militia had been cut down in spades by the better equipped forces of the Tauron government. An untrained farm boy with a rifle was no match for a combat veteran. That's why they fought dirty.

The centurions didn't have the brains, literally, to take advantage of anything other then numbers or base squad on squad tactics.

'Cavil better have a virus or something up his sleeve. The colonials would massacre these guys...fracking old battlestar's could wreck our people if this is the best that bastard can offer.'

"I'll just run across this hall, shouldn't be too far then."

Sam burst into a run, passing weaker walls of glass as opposed to metal.

'The labs where we made the rest of em.'

While One, Two and Three all were birthed aboard the colony, the rest had come to life aboard the Hub.

The pinnacle of cylon construction and the last major project the five completed before Cavil's treachery.

'such a frakking waste. Cavil wouldn't know how to operate these rooms, he's only obsessed with putting blood on the scales. Seven children exist because of him, we had plans for so much more though' Sam thought regretfully.

Like Saul's vision of a vast cylon armada a thousand strong, Sam and Tory had proposed they create many more children. That was the real _Plan._

The cylons had always had one. To build a new world, a new civilization as diverse as that of humanity on kobol or the colonies but superior to the first attempt on earth. Consensus rather then a hereditary rule between opposing factions. Ellen's father had been an enemy of Saul's and their ancestors had like wise been power brokers in the exodus of kobol.

'How could we have not known this would all happen' Sam thought as he neared destination.

The sudden impact shocked him out of his reverie, the onset of pain wasn't what Sam imagined it might be though. Cavil had been right about one thing, he could shut it off.

He fell backward on instinct as glass shards flew in front of him from the left side, the heavy gun making its presence known. As Sam rotated his weapon to fire in response, falling while doing so, he registered his hand.

In one instance he saw five digits, the next he saw three, leaving only his thumb, index and middle finger intact.

Sam's body hit the ground. A spray of fire shattering still more glass, Sam brought his fully bleeding hand to his face for protection. Some of the blood naturally fell onto Sam's mouth, as he exhaled a deep breath he could taste the metallic iron in his own blood.

'blood on the scales my ass' Sam thought. A human might have screamed, gone into shock or become a suicidal force driven by adrenaline.

Sam did none of this.

Looking at his crippled weapon he went over in his head every action to be taken methodically. Doing this was a fracking risk to be sure.

'Better not frack this up.'

The firing increases, spraying more windows to more labs. This section of hub resembling the latest all glass enclosed classroom on caprica. Sam liked to think they'd been ahead of the curve thirty-five years ago.

The firing ceases.

'grab the grenade'

His undamaged hand reaches for the explosive.

' pull the pin'

As the grenade comes off his vest, a bloodied index finger reaches over and pulls out the pin.

' Frak this is stupid. Three.'

Sam leans back, tucking in his feet before pushing himself forward.

' Two'

Lifting off with his knees he jumps rather then stands.

'One'

He see's the centurion, standing to the side of a birthing chamber meant to incubate new models. The machine's left hand Is on a magazine while the other holds an empty rifle.

'Zero'

As the magazine is halfway in its journey to the rifle, Sam throws the grenade.

In slow motion you could see the centurion's eye as it catches sight of the grenade. The sound of the magazine clicking into the ammo feed on the rifle is faint. The gun comes up to take in Sam within its cross-hairs.

'I'm gonna die' Sam thinks as he notes the rifle's line of fire come to bear on him.

The grenade explodes within two inches of the centurion's torso. Part of the floor around the birthing pool gives way to the weight of the centurion and the damage of the grenade.

The centurion falls into the shallow pool, consuming much of the four by seven foot space.

'Thank god and the caprica buccaneers' Sam sighs.

The machine however still flops its arms around attempting to right its damaged body. Like some kind of life terminator, its pressing on with its goal.

Sam begin to hop toward the birthing pool. Weary of the centurion and wondering for once why he isn't flanked by centurion of his own.

The centurion's intelligence catches a break while Sam's back is turned, having walked past the centurion and the birthing pool, Sam is vulnerable to the ambush.

One cannon nestled within the centurion's right arm comes out to play.

Same turns around a hundred-eighty degree's, his good hand withdrawing a pistol, the two exchange brief fire.

'fraking hell!'

The bullets leave their respective starting points at the same time, those of the pistol pass those of the centurion's hand cannon. Bullets meant to come up against armor as well as flesh tear into Sam's right shoulder, wounding it like the left. Another hits Sam's chest, one tearing through flesh and a rib to exit out Sam's back. The next pierces Sam's right lung, fragments of bone come into play to further cause internal bleeding.

Sam realizes he'll be dead soon.

His hand drops the gun. The centurion's eye still oscillates but it makes no move to attack him.

'Why don't you finish it. I helped build you I know you can get up out of that tub and kill me, I'm dead now or later but you don't have mind to think of such sadistic torture.'

Cavil would though. Cavil had watched them all slowly suffocate to death in that god forsaken room. Cavil had looked on as they'd bloodied metal and glass trying to claw their way to air on the other side.

'If Cavil has his way, the colonials wont know the favor a quick airlock is for my people. Cavil's gonna cut em open before he lets them go to the next life.' Sam thinks darkly.

The centurions eye ceases oscillating back and forth, it fixes in the center, looking directly at Sam.

An audio begins to play within the otherwise mute slave centurion.

"Hello Dad."

"John?"

"In a manner of speaking. I see your worse for ware, must be all the soft human like tissue. Oh wait, that's a problem going into combat isn't it? Must be unfortunate, poke too many holes and you'll be all over the place." Cavil's voice sneered.

"I'm not dead yet. Give...give up john. We can get the others back, yea know be a family."

Sam slowly back against the wall. Feeling the exposed wiring with his good hand.

"Oh. Bargaining huh. Tell you what. Lets skip bargaining and go straight to reflection and reception."

John's hand clasps the right cable. Or he hopes its the right one.

"Jho...Son we can still sort this out. I know your angry."

"Angry? Why should I be angry, I'm the pinnacle of science and technology. I'm stronger then any human being like myself or a fraction my age, which let me tell you is impressive. Considering you put me in a FRAKKING SEVENTY YEAR OLD's BODY!" Cavil roared. His view of the righteous injustice laid bare before Sam once again.

Sam decided he'd have to bargain with One, if only to keep the mad man talking. As the blood continued to fill his lung and the ability to hold back the pain ebbed, he now became fearful Cavil might still win.

'I'll have to use this somehow...just got to keep him talking.'

"Your right One. You really are and I never agreed with Ellen on putting you in that body. Patch me up and we can make them see reason. Bring the whole gang back together to build new bodies for all your brothers."

"Really? And tell me_ Dad, _what would I become?"

"Anything you want to be! You can be anything One. A spaceship, a centurion even."

"You do good work I'll give you that dad. Your friend in black really gave my guards a problem but there's a fascinating saying. What was it? Quantity has a quality all its own."

"Yeah...exactly right Joh..One. That's why you need me, together we can build more ships. Put this war off a couple of years til we're perfect. You, the centurions, raiders, base-ships, everything. One perfect force."

"My, you've given this some thought. You know maybe I was wrong about you after all. How long would this take do you think."

"I don't know. We're not strong enough right now, we have to wait."

"You see you had me until you said 'wait'. The colonials crossed the border, broke your precious armistice you worked so hard on. Suppose a smoking gun is all the warning we have next time?"

"They wouldn't."

"Oh but they would. Its in their nature. I'd hoped you learn that on their planets, spend enough time and see the light."

"If it comes down to humans or cylons you know I'd protect our people."

" No. You'd have us busy building ships and centurions while our greatest opportunity to prevent the destruction of our people slipped through our fingers."

"We'll make new ones!"

Sam's hand tightens around the cable.

"Alright dad. I have just one question for you before we conclude things and starting having a father son bonding experience."

Sam felt nervous.

He'd defend his people but he doubted he could become a warmonger. Everything he'd done up to now was to prevent a greater bloodshed occurring.

"Do you think I'm frakking stupid?"

"What.."

"You kill countless brothers and sisters, who you don't even attempt to communicate with. I should thank you for it really, it would've been much harder for the naive fools commit if someone started spouting final five nonsense."

"I would if I could, we had to.."

"Had to what? Catch us by surprise? Sow confusion? Not let on that it was you doing all this? Who did you think I would assume was behind a fleet of base-ships rebelling? God?"

"He works in mysterious ways."

"He hmm? You five always did address god differently. What's to say a great big machine didn't create the universe? You created us after all, maybe it was intelligent design. Following that its _our _intelligent design that humanity make an exit stage right joining their ancestors."

"God wouldn't want that."

"And just how the frak would you know what god wants? Some of my brothers have become men of the cloth on the colonies, brother cavil is our title."

"Those are false gods."

"Their all false as far as I'm concerned but entertain this. I could say anything and as a man of the cloth my word carried more weight then a doctor, a politician, even a frakking general."

Sam admitted religion was a big draw for the colonials but he doubted anything more then a small minority worshiped men like 'brother cavil'. It was akin to saying the colonies would invade earth if they found out it was full of monotheists and advanced technology.

"Granted you had limits with your caprica or your picons in the bunch but even their I could tell a murderer he was absolved and he'd feel no guilt. If I say the marriage between a happy couple shouldn't come to be, then poof its up in smoke."

Sam couldn't deny some people carried the kind of power Cavil spoke of. He doubted many, if any could match John's vindictive egomaniac streak for manipulation. This battle and the one's Sam feared might follow were proof enough.

"Take away my scrolls, my title and the fancy clothes, I'm nobody. With the gods I can do no wrong and that's why these people have to be stamped out. I'll even say the cylons are carrying out god's will for past transgressions."

"God isn't about violence."

"No your right. The one true god is all about peace and love. Lets all start smoking herbs while we're at it. Relaxes the mind I hear. But these _gods, _they demand sacrifices and condone child slavery."

"They haven't done that in thousands of years."

"The time comes when you can't hide from the things you've done. The crimes of humanity are too great. If that means I have to use our _cylon god _to get the others to fall in line then so be it. I'll just reprogram them when its all over."

"Your a monster."

"No I'm a machine. The monsters are those multiplying mammals on those twelve planets. Maybe I'll bring you back to see fireworks when we go to slay the monsters and their gods."

"Hey john."

The tone in Cavils voice changed to one of annoyed anger rather then smug gloating.

"what?"

"Frak you!"

With that Sam yanked as hard as he could, pulling the cable out and tearing it off. Sparks still flying from the broken end of the wire, John thrust the cable into the birthing pools liquid filled tub. The electricity traveled from the wire through the pools contents and into the centurion.

The red eye dimmed and smoke began to rise from several opening within the centurion's body.

Content he wasn't in danger and exhausted from blood loss, not to mention Cavil's diatribe. Sam Anders closed his eye's and the world faded to black.


	12. Chapter 12

The Eight's struggles had long ceased, the expected death at the hands of rebel centurions making any action she could think to commit fruitless.****

**"**My name is Sam." The cold metal of gun pressed up against Eight's skull.****

Silence.****

**"**I'm going to ask my friend here to lower his weapon and step away, after that we both count to three.."****

**"**And you'll kill me is that it? Just like you killed all our people to get in here you frakking human." The words spilled from Eight with a venom usually dispensed by her blond siblings.****

**"**If you give me a reason to, then yes."****

A few moments passed as the words sank in.****

'If you give me a reason to..' Eight realized she might not die on the floor, didn't mean the human wouldn't gun her down once he got what he wanted. Still better to be on her feet then subdued when the moment came.****

'I'll escape this colonial and his pet to warn the others..'****

**"**I'll cooperate." The words came out of their own accord.****

**"**ata girl. Now when we both reach three we get up, nice and easy. After that we have a chat and see if we can't help each other."****

'Like hell!'****

**"**Ok."****

**"**Good. I'll start. One."****

The centurion stepped back a small distance, weapon still raised as a precaution.****

**"**Two"****

The shared glance between the centurion and Sam communicates reassurance. The giant becomes passive, lowering its weapon to bear on the floor instead of the the two bodies within its field of vision.****

**"**Three"****

They dont spring apart, Sam takes his time getting off the Eight. Finally pushing up with his feet to stand over the cylon a moment before backing a away a few feet.****

**"**Get up. I can't talk to you while your on the ground like that." Sam says. Eight's moment of hesitation causes Sam to worry. She shouldn't be a threat, shouldn't be plotting a surprise attack.****

**  
**'John Shouldn't have airlocked him into space.' The grip he'd relaxed on the pistol he now held at his side tightened just a hair more.****

'Who know's what John's done the the kids since he kicked us out of the family.' Sam thought.****

The Eight didn't hesitate, didn't jump for joy either but at least the suspicion just staying prone on the ground was put to rest.****

Her back was to time, his face a mystery to her. The centurion that stood in front of her no longer had her in the cross hairs but she knew they could do incredible things when moved to do so, they were cylons after all.****

A pair of eye's stared down at her as she awaited the end.****

**'**Why don't they just finish it already?' Eight longed to know.****

A red centurion eye oscilated back and forth as it observed the eight, parent Sam had subdued. The gentle whir of it's limb's motors was the little warning the fleshy cylon would have before bullets tore through her.****

The centurion leveled its arm in preparation for the shot, a task made difficult as Parent Sam obscured the torso.****

**'**New entery selected. Cranium selected for primary entry point of munitions.' The centurion prattled inwardly.****

Parent Sam's head turned, drawn to the noise of the centurion's armaments. His facial expression changed to one of shock and confused disbelief.****

Within an instant Sam threw the whole of his body over the subdued Eight. Her head no longer an open shot, least the centurion also shoot parent Sam through the head. The centurion lowered its weapon.****

**"**Frak! What the hades do you think your doing ?" Sam shouted up at his metal companion, part child part bringer of destruction. Not all free'd centurions had been in existance when the five had been..._re-educated, _and in this case it showed.****

**"**Parent Sam has subdued hostile bio-cylon, model number is designated as belonging to the forces of the traitor Cavil, carrying out justice as ordered."****

**"**Justice? She's already beaten and besides, its not like she's a Six or a One. Now stow that weapon soldier and cover that cause way she just ran out of."****

The centurion didn't move, though it armament did not rise to the occasion in mutiny either. All in all Sam knew this was going to be a difficult lesson in prisoner relations. The colonials hadn't had much in the way of laws governing prisoners of war and the original centurions hadn't been designed with prisoners in mind.****

Turning back to the Eight beneath him, Sam took a moment to take in what little he could deduce as she was face down against the floor under him.**  
****  
**She had the same black hair her sisters sported but crude outfit she wore covered most anything else up, he'd have to speak to her first and that meant turning her over.****

**"**Listen my name is Sam Anders and when I count to three I'm going to slowly get up. Once I'm up your going to slowly roll over. Any funny business and my metallic friend over here is gonna fil you with holes. Got that?" Sam said in a stern tone. It was a persona he'd seen countless cops morph into back on caprica when situations could go either way.****

**"**..."****

**"**Louder!"****

**"**Ye...Yes."****

**"**Good now we're getting somewhere." Sam said as he took in a deep breath.****

**"**One"****

So much could go wrong here. The centurion might think he was giving him an opening. A nervous glance told him the sentient machine hadn't lifted a finger...er..claw to threaten the Eight. But just in case.****

**"**Centurion!" Sam said aloud causing the machines head to quirk in his direction.****

**"**You will not under any circumstances open fire or otherwise harm your fellow cylon that I've taken prisoner is that understood? Unless she attacks me you just hold back."****

**'**Prisoners? Sharon couldn't believe her life's ironic turn of events. First she'd been shot by her fellow cylons for suggesting the human models could give themselves up as prisoners or simply negotiate with the centurions. Here a centurion was being commanded by someone to allow her to end her plight in all this fighting as prisoner! She'd get to live!'****

**"**Understood Parent Sam."****

**'**Parent Sam? ****

**AN: **I'm back. After just typing something up and publishing it (my new and first ever Code Geass story 'Echo'), I'm digging up my old word documents and putting them up. This one isn't what I wanted to give you, you've waited and deserve more. I'll be bringing much more down the pipe. Do you think Sam's dead ? Should he die and ressurect or pull a commander shepard (ME3), and manage to barely finish the fight? Leave comments, questions and suggestions in the review.


	13. Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13 PART 1

_"THE FALL"_

**Ressurection Hub**

Sam heard the noise of the approaching centurion before he opened his eye's, the light painful to his eye's.

The blurred shape of a centurion looked down at him.

Inside Sam prayed he was looking up at an ally, unlike the movie's though, it was probably just one more sick joke by cavil then a rescue operation to salvage a dying hero.

The machine remained where it was, standing over him. Did it understand what it was doing? Could it see betrayal that John had orchestrated. Of course not.

'Their frakking corpses, walking, muted corpses, only following the simplest orders without a thought as to why or how.'

The machine's head jerked as some noise was heard in the distance. Sam thought it was the sound of glass breaking.

'I wonder if John left these labs as they were the day he killed us. Probably didn't want to see the rest of the family be born' Sam thought, the wooziness from blood loss clouding his mind.

Reaching down at his shirt, he made to tear it off, to see the open wounds, perhaps form a crude bandage from the tattered rags he now wore.

The centurion's head turned to him now. Whatever had startled it, Sam alone now occupied its attention.

'I'm not being killed by centurion. Not really.' Sam took comfort in that thought. His vision was returning, he'd have to squint to see the machine's gun unfold from its arm. He was glad he did.

The smooth lines, the thing was labor of love created by Galen, his friend and fellow earth refugee.

'If I'm about to die, I wanna be reminded of them, of those moments we spent together.'

The centurion raised its weapon at Sam.

'Its going to shoot me in the head. Least Cavil isn't controlling it this time. Smug bastard would probably shoot me in the legs and let me bleed out here on this floor.'

BANG!

A wall blew open nearby, the secondary explosions that came through loud and clear were the grenades that had come through the breach.

The centurion really wasn't controlled by Cavil, if it was it would have just shot Sam and ignored the new threats. Instead It unlocked its second fire-arm and let the bullets fly.

Sam rolled over, his clothing becoming drenched in the pool of blood he'd been laying in. The red smear followed Sam right up to the nearby counter. His right hand struggled to heave his frame around the accursed workstation.

"Covering fire!" Someone shouted.

A loud answer was heard, Sam could hear two, maybe three large caliber guns going off.

The centurion's own weapon could be heard, if only for a moment.

'Who is that? She's still back on the ship so it can't be her. Who the frak is that?' Sam wondered.

Then silence.

"clear. All target eliminated. Tend to parent Sam!"

"Alright, I'm going as fast as I can. We need to find him first."

"He's over here!" Came a voice, a few feet away.

'An eight? I saw her die, the rest are frak know's where...unless the centurion's found them.'

The sound of running, centurion and humanoid alike registered in Sam's ears, low to the ground, his vision threatening to fog up once more.

Suddenly Sam registered the sensation of being lifted off the ground, propped up by two individuals, an eight aided on his left by a centurion.

'There are many copies.' Sam thought glumly. The eight from before was probably dead, though for the life of him he couldn't remember what had caused her death.

One moment they'd been talking, the next a round had come screaming through the air and exited the eights skull, the shot having caved in the poor cylon's nose. That Sam remembered, that look she had as she fell, eye's open in shock.

**Flashback:**

They sat on either end of the hall staring each other down, looking for signs of deception, a tell that one was a liar, the other about to lung forward and attempt an act of patricide.

"So...your a cylon." The eights voice reached Sam's ears, it wasn't a question. She was repeating his words, but the statement didn't come across as fact.

'She doesn't believe me. What have you done to them Cavil?'

No switch was thrown, no song or melody it seemed could lift what Cavil had put in place.

'In this place Cavil's reality is the only one that exists.'

The child's manipulations had come to fruition in this moment, in every moment Sam experienced on this accursed superstructure. The biological humanoid cylons didn't know who he was, they probably didn't even know about Ellen, Tigh, Galen or Tory.

'Ha! Saul if you could see me now, you always said you'd end up a grumpy old man forgotten by the kids when the holidays came around and they'd matured.' Sam thought. The smile that played upon his face piqued the Eight's curiosity.

"Why the frak are you smiling?" She was angry, she was scared and confused.

"hmm. Oh just thinking about a friend, another cylon."

"Is he like you? A cylon we don't know about?"

Sam's response was crisp and matter a fact.

"Yes."

Another moment of silence before the Eight once again questioned Sam.

"Is he here with you? With the centurions somewhere else... fighting the rest of us?" The eight asked with a hint of venom.

'She thinks I'm the bad guy here? Frak me, this is worse then that snow job Scorpia pulled in my second season.' Sam thought, recalling the championship match he'd played in during his second year with the Caprica Buccaneers.

"No...I don't know where he is exactly but I have reason to believe he doesn't know the truth. You can thank Cavil for that." Sam replied downheartedly.

Eight looked down at her hands, eye's shifting this way and that as if trying to come to a decision, silently weighing the odds this was all an elaborate human hoax.

Finally the biological cylon, the prodigy of Sam's friend Galen, let out a sigh before her head once more came up to stare into Sam's eye's.

"Show me."

"What?"

"Show me everything you've said, show me your truth. Cavil, this other cylon who doesn't know he's one of us, if he even exists."

"How do you..." Sam began when the Eight stretched out her hand to him, reaching the center of the hallway, begging Sam to reach across and close the chasm as well.

The centurion's motions hadn't been concealed, there had been no point. The praetorian brought its rifle to bear on the Eight once more. Waiting for the Eight to try something while Sam let down his guard.

"Lower your weapon!" Sam all but shouted at the centurion, extending his own hand in the process to touch the Eight's.

"We're family after all." Sam said.

Eight:

This was all wrong, the human reaching out to her, his claims of being one of her kind. But she'd gone along with it, the centurion's deadly proficencie at ending her siblings saw to that. The traitorous fellow cylon had very nearly ended her already.

Their hands touched and for her, for this one lone Eight that had already endured betrayal and anguish several times over today, from the discord in the control room to the sight of her fellow eight's butchered in the halls. Before everything changed and the projection...or something like it fired off images at her, Eight wonder absently weather Diana was sending word to loyalist soldiers to gun down her model, after all, each model while unique was the same from copy to copy.

Each Six could seduce or wrestle a marine to the ground, maybe even take out an unaware battlestar captain under their spell. The One's who'd been absent when this whole clusterfrak got underway, had that same cynicism weather it was the presidents aerobics instructor or the local piconese priest. So one cylon to another they expected the same outcome, the same reaction however varied circumstances might be.

The surroundings did change though, these thoughts did give way to new one's, one's of alarm proceeded by curiousity. They were in a small room, several cylons were seated at what appeared to be a triangular table, a large rotating circular table in the middle allowed her brothers and sisters to choose from what was an amazing variety of food, foods she's certainly never eaten.

'Only a cylon could show me this...but that doesn't mean he isn't lying about other things. Why attack us all? Why not come to us for help?' The Eight thought puzzled.

"See something out of place?"

"Yes, I've never been here what is this place, this projection your showing me?"

"Its a memory of long ago, or at least it feels that way, reality I'd say this was maybe thirty two years ago."

"Why don't I remember this?"

"You'll find out in time. Just stand back and enjoy this memory, if all goes well the others will come to remember moments like this..." Sam said as his gaze settled on Cavil. The one who'd caused all the chaos barely two years after this very meeting. The One was chatting with Leoben about something, and looking on was none other then himself seated at the smallest side of this Isosceles triangle that passed for a table.

For her part, Eight just kept looking at the faces gathered, noting with some confusion the extra chairs but also her own absence. Five entered through a side passageway, of which their seemed to be four, one for every side of the room, lacking doors or any other form of barrier.

"Ellen suggested it. She thought removing the doors and other barriers would make us a more open society then we used to be." Sam said aloud. The memory continued to play out with him sitting on the edge of his own empty section, now lecturing Leoben about something while Diana made a remark. Sam smiled, his memory copying the action.

"Who's Ellen?" Eight said before following his eye's, seeing number Three begin to argue with both Cavil and Leoben, all be it in playful manner.

"She's in the middle, still young and trying to impress me. She's always been stuck in the middle of her two brother arguing for a middle ground, though I think she just want to impress her father at this meeting of ours."

"Her Father?!" Eight asked mouth agape. The idea that the cylon race had parents, could concieve at all was simply ludicris. They'd tried thousands of times, counteless miscarriages between models had brought mental instability, suicides, all of which ended in boxings. Their sole colonial prisoner that showed the cylon race humanities true intentions had even been used, primarily by the six's but also the odd Three or Eight like herself. The longing to create life had been powerful, was still powerful and this brought all manner of questions about why god would curse them so, if they were indeed his chosen.

"Not in the biological sense I suppose but something doesn't just come from nothing. Haven't you ever wondered where you came from Sharon? How you and all your brothers and sisters exist aboard those baseships that look nothing like the one's the colonials built in the war?"

"No. We were created by centurions in the last days of the fighting, those baseships were going to be replaced, we simply stole the plans for the newer models and expanded on them, just like the centurions." She recited confidently, this was common knowledge to her people after all, and a point of pride. The colonials could create ships and machines but only machines could see these devices reached their full potential.

Sam closed his eye's and massaged his face with his hands, the brief action meant to quell the headache, the anger or whatever else may come at this revelation. He'd already been here before. The hybrid had told him of all of this, he'd been shocked then and had filed it away since, needing a clear head to free his people. To hear one of his children say the lie's cavil had instilled, the fake memories and half truths working flawlessly, got to him. But Eight would get the wrong idea if he lashed our or let his emotions rule him, their would be a time for vengence soon enough.

"Here they come. Hopefully this will answer some of your questions."

The clatter of feet, some with sturdy boot heels, other in casual footwear grew louder from the corrider to the seated Sam's immediate right. Sure enough Eight saw a blond lead the assembled group, followed closely by an aged man with greying hair who lack much of any of it on his head. Behind these two came a woman with olive skin and a man wearing what appeared to be lab coat spotted with various fluids.

"Hello Mom and Dad." The assembled cylons said, though Eight could see Diana looked at Sam when she said the words. They made to rise from their seats but the blond woman Eight assumed might be Ellen stopped them.

"Oh its alright, you don't to get up on our account. We have some wonderful news to share with you all, don't we Tigh?". The woman said looking loving at the bald man seated between herself and Sam.

The Eight could only continue to stare at the cylons, at Sam and all the other unfamiliar faces that she felt she should know. As her gaze traveled over the assembly awaiting their next words, she failed to take notice of the woman peering around a nearby corner from which the final five had entered.

That woman was her.

AN: Sorry for the late update. Between work and lots of stress getting ready to go on vacation to Seattle (ironic), its been hard to rouse the muse to write. Originally this was supposed to be about twice as long of an update and be the final one. Given circumstances we'll call this chapter 12.5 or 13 Part 1. In unrelated news, 1963 is still a pain to write, Echo will get another update sooner then later. Have a good week everyone!


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